The renewal of the management contract
for the Canadian firm operating Nigeria’s electricity transmission
company, is being frustrated by the permanent secretary Godknows Igali,
who now calls the shots in the absence of a minister.
BusinessDay learnt last night that
Igali, working through the chairman of TCN, Dahiu Waziru has stalled the
process of renewing the management contract despite the documents
having been signed internally.
Igali, a close ally of former president
Goodluck Jonathan, virtually controls the TCN today, having made
redundant, Manitoba Hydro International, MHI the firm which was
contracted three years ago to operate the power transmission company
under a privatised electricity market.
The permanent secretary gives orders
directly to Ngozi Osuhor, the ministry appointed director for market
operations at TCN and the relationship is causing worries among the
power companies and their investors.
The companies see the director as an
agent of civil servants at the ministry who continue to work tirelessly
to scuttle the reforms of the power sector.
The battle over control of TCN is traced
to the average of N17-18 billion monthly in market funds, the control
of which was brought under Osuhor’s mandate by the ministry, sidelining
MHI the private sector managers of TCN.
The ministry of finance and the Bureau
of Public Enterprises, (BPE) are the two shareholders of TCN and they
have expressed no objection to the renewal of Manitoba’s management
contract according to investigation. However, the permanent secretary
has ensured that the TCN board does not give accent to the
contract renewal.
Said a senior government official who
asked not to be named, “Igali is the only one in charge and it is no
secret that he has not been in favour of the management contract on
account of who controls the market funds.
“You can see how the ministry people
have succeeded over the years to frustrate each of the three former
Executive Directors for market operations appointed by MHI. All three
have gone back to Canada and today MHI has no one in that position,
leaving the coast clear for them.”
Manitoba Hydro was engaged under a three
year management contract in 2012 with option of a two year renewal
after several attempts by senior government officials at the office of
then vice president to frustrate the power reform programme by seeking
to hold on to the award of lucrative procurement contracts.
It took the personal guarantee of Atedo
Peterside, chairman of the Technical Committee on Privatisation (TCN)
before the logjam was broken.
As permanent secretary, Igali has
singlehandedly rolled back part of the gains of the widely
acclaimed power reform agenda by stalling several good policies
and pushing through the controversial bill setting up two parallel
regulators for the power sector despite opposition from the market.
Market operators say there is no use
having a second regulator when one will do, and they fear it could be a
ploy by civil servants at the ministry of power to regain some of the
influence they lost to power privatisation.
BusinessDay learnt that the bill was
signed by the former president at the behest of Igali and against legal
advise from the relevant agencies involved in the power privatisation.
No comments:
Post a Comment