As people anxiously await new power investors to drastically turn around the sector, experts list gas supply shortage and high prices, low technical and management capacity and inadequate funding as major threats to the quest for uninterrupted electricity, DAYO OKETOLA reports
Energy experts have identified managerial and technical incompetence as part of the problems the new power investors will be up against following the takeover of power assets of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
This came as there are fears that power investors may be unable to raise the capital expenditure (CAPEX) for their operations after it became clear that Nigerian banks alone provided 70 per cent, in loans and equity, of the N404bn paid for the power assets. The international lenders also provided part of the funds.
The fact that CMEC/Eurafric Limited, the preferred bidder for the Sapele Generating Company, is still struggling to raise $21m to complete the payment of the $201m bid price has exacerbated the fears of funding, according to analysts.
Some of the investors, they said, had also benefited from the N190bn Power and Aviation Fund disbursed by the Central Bank of Nigeria through the Money Deposit Banks.
But experts noted that the power sector would continue to attract funds from the Nigerian banks and international lenders because companies in the electric power value chain are cash cows and financiers would likely get their money back.
They, however, identified low technical and management competence as a major problem the private sector-driven power sector would be faced with.
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