Dogara: N2.74tn spent on sector in 16 years with no results
Investors in the
nation’s power sector have called for the settlement of N50 billion owed
them, while also calling for the introduction of a realistic tariff
structure, reflective of the current rate of inflation and foreign
exchange rate.
The Chairman of Heirs Holding/Transcorp
Power Ltd, Mr. Tony Elumelu, speaking tuesday at a
two-day interactive
dialogue/workshop on the Nigerian power sector, organised by the
National Assembly, said investors in the sector could not be expected to
perform miracles, with the N50 billion owed them.
The workshop with the theme, “Nigerian
Power Challenge: A Legislative Intervention,” had in attendance Senate
President Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon.
Yakubu Dogara, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde
Fashola, and other stakeholders.
Elumelu also cited over-regulation by the government as one of the factors impeding growth of the industry.
“The tariff structure has to be
cost-reflective for the sector to work, especially as we are not taking
into account the rate of inflation and the exchange rate.
“The cost of gas also is there and too
much regulation is stifling the take off of the privatisation of the
sector. The sector must be allowed to flow freely, like the
telecommunications sector did before tariffs began to crash years
later,” he said.
“With debts of up to N50 billion, it is
unfair to expect that investors will perform miracles. The system must
encourage them and we all must be sincere with ourselves,” Elumelu
added.
In his address, Dogara expressed
dissatisfaction over the fact that the N2.74 trillion expended on the
power sector in the past 16 years had not yielded commensurate results,
but has resulted in perpetual outages instead.
Dogara advocated for new strategies to be formulated by stakeholders in order to address the challenges in the power sector.
“Perhaps the most important question is
what happened to the N2.74 trillion spent on the sector from 1999-2015?
Why is it that the more we spend on the power sector, the more darkness
we attract?” Dogara queried.
“Why are most of the companies licensed
by Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission not able to start their
projects,” he demanded to know.
Some of the challenges in the sector,
Dogara said, run across the entire power value chain of generation,
transmission and distribution, which have been made worse by inadequate
funding, poor energy mix, fuel supply issues, a flawed regulatory
framework, and commercial issues, among others.
“The diagnosis includes but is not
limited to a critical analysis of the extant legislation and regulatory
framework guiding the Nigerian power sector to determine if there is a
need for amendments or enactment of new laws that will galvanise the
sector to deliver the required results,” the speaker said.
Also Saraki in his address described the epileptic power situation as the failure of governance.
He said privatisation of the sector was
meant to be the solution to the problems of the sector, but instead it
turned out that the generation and distribution companies were bought by
people who have no idea of how to run the companies.
“We must be prepared to put Nigeria
first and the government itself must be sincere with every decision that
they have to take,” Saraki said.
Fashola, on the other hand, said that
despite the challenges in the sector, its privatisation could not be
reversed, adding that structures needed to be put in place to strengthen
the process and encourage investors.
Fashola noted that generation companies
were dealing with huge liabilities, which have limited their capacity to
pay for gas to generate electricity, while litigation was also
affecting the growth of the sector.
He complained that vandalism was also
crippling the sector, as almost 3,000 megawatts of electricity had been
decommissioned by vandalism.
by Damilola Oyedele in Abuja/Thisday
No comments:
Post a Comment