FG to Establish National Council on Power

Fri, Jan 31, 2014

By publisher

2 MIN READ

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President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the establishment of a national council on power to ensure that Nigerians get adequate power supply

|  By Vincent Nzemeke  |  Feb. 10, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT

A NATIONAL Council on Power, NACP, is to be established to help sustain and ensure that the privatisation of the power sector yields the desired results. The new council will have the mandate to  assemble stakeholders from all sectors of the economy to brainstorm on sustainable power policies to help in the post-privatisation era of the power sector.

Godknows Igali, permanent secretary, ministry of power, disclosed the information at the sixth Power Summit/Civil Society Organisations forum in Abuja, on Thursday, January 30. According to Igali President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the establishment of the council as a major follow-up to power development in the country. “The Council would consist of all states in Nigeria to make it an expanded forum and the next National Power Summit will be the first National Council on Power, all commissioners of power in every state will be assembled together for the meeting and ideas will be shared amongst all, there will be an elaborate discussion on the privatisation in the sector,” Igali said.

Chinedu Nebo, minister of power, in his speech assured that works on the western gas pipeline axis was almost completed. He charged the civil society organisations and the media to mount campaigns against vandalism of gas infrastructures as the declaration of the Transition Electricity Market, TEM, approaches. The minister commended international stakeholders for their support in the current transformation inherent in the power sector.

Philip Aduda, chairman, Senate committee on power, steel and metallurgy, spoke on the importance of the summit. Aduda said he was hopeful that the summit would lead to the growth of the sector because “it has successfully brought the civil societies to look at issues critically and ensure progress in the power sector, this will also create better opportunities for deliberating in critical electricity issues.”

He said that the Senate committee would hold a roundtable discussion soon with stakeholders including owners of Gencos, Discos and TCN to discuss crucial issues on the impediments to having steady power supply, including the ban of generators importation.