President Muhammadu Buhari has clearly stated that rather than layoff the much applauded electricity reform exercise, initiated and set off by his predecessors, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr Goodluck Jonathan, as speculated in some quarters, his administration will do well to sustain and improve upon modalities to improve the lots of Nigerians
Speaking on behalf of federal government yesterday, in Abuja, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali disclosed that aside embracing the power reform exercise, the PMB’s administration will also modernise other vital programmes that will address extant challenges of the sector to sustain private sector investments in the sector.
Igali who made this known while making a presentation at an electricity investment summit, tagged, ‘The Powering Africa Nigeria Investment Summit, provided an insight into the plans of the government of President Muhammadu Buhari for Nigeria’s power sector.
According to him, ‘the government has said that it will further push for sanctity of the regulatory environment to give investors some good comfort and that as part of such commitment to continuity.
We want to assure you that President Muhammadu Buhari has reiterated over and over that this government will do everything to make the enabling environment in the power sector better for our investors.
He said, “Investors can have the confidence that their investments in the power sector are not only secured but we will ensure that there is sanctity of stable regulatory environment for you to invest. He added that, Nigerians can be sure that government on its part will continue to refine anything that needs to be refined to enable you do your business in Nigeria. We are also looking at diversification of our power base, very soon we will flag off a coal power plant and there is a lot of look on hydro and solar sources.
On his part, former minister of power, Prof Bart Nnaji during a paper presentation, advised the government to consider breaking up the country’s transmission network into non-politically influenced regional transmission networks, to stimulate efficiency and investments by private investors.
Nnaji blamed the failure by investors to boost upgrade of transmission network on poor government budgets, a trend, which he said eventually impede the growth of the sector.
He reiterated that the transmission network at its current status remains deficient and unable to meet the aspirations of investors in the generation and distribution aspects of the industry. Nnaji said, “What we would like to see is a robust transmission network that is also able to wheel all the power that we want to wheel. Right now, we cannot wheel all the power that is installed in Nigeria and we need to build more of transmission but it is expensive to build.
The former minister argued that the national grid will always remain,’ but for me, if we segment the grid and have private sector take over some of the segments and use a model of either build, operate and transfer, it becomes possible for us to quickly transform the sector.
He added that the National Control Centre, System Operator and others will still be in place but really being able to fund the sector is critical and the amount of money that is available for the transmission is very little.”
