Prof Chinedu Nebo, Power Minister
By Chineme Okafor
Stakeholders in the Nigeria’s electricity industry have described the ongoing power sector privatisation as a “pathway” and not a “door” to sustainable electricity supply market.
They argued that the expectations of incremental quality and quantity in electricity supply are dependent on the satisfaction of certain key conditions, which they said include respect for established electricity market rules; adherence to agreed key performance indicators (KPIs) and indeed sustained financial commitments to capacities expansion of privatised power generation and distribution assets by their new core owners.
They said with the overall objective of the federal government’s power sector privatisation as contained in the Electricity Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act 2005, it is expected that the sale of successor generation and distribution companies created from the unbundling of defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) should put Nigeria’s power sector on the pathway to efficiency.
Two industry players who spoke to THISDAY on the condition of anonymity posited that while the government had successfully selected preferred bidders and handed over the generation and distribution assets to the new investors, it cannot be said to have done that with absolute competitiveness and may have from this instance initiated patchiness that could in turn affect the progress of the sector.
They said the decision of the government through the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) to lower the standard processes and accommodate certain interests in the exercise meant that it had first of all compromised and allowed the acquisition of mostly PHCN distribution companies by investors that may be finding it difficult to now operate their assets.
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