BREAKING NEWS, Power
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Nigerian legislators urge the federal government not to renew the contract of Manitoba Hydro International of Canada to manage the Transmission Company of Nigeria after in expires by the end of June
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jun 20, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE House of Representatives Committee on Power is urging the federal government not to renew the one year contract extension given to Manitoba Hydro International of Canada to manage the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, when it expires at the end of June. The committee said the contract had failed to achieve its objectives and should be discontinued upon its expiration.
The government had contracted the Canadian firm to manage the TCN in the wake of the privatisation of the power sector, which saw the government retaining the transmission aspect of the power industry. The committee, headed by Dan Asuquo, made the recommendation in its report on plans by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, to pay retiring commissioners a severance package of N2.7 billion.
The committee recommends that adequate succession planning must be put in place with the effective establishment of the System Operator and the Transmission Service Provider as provided by Section 25 of the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act. The Act does not provide for the existence of a Transmission Company of Nigeria after the disintegration of the SO and the TS.
The committee also recommended that that the House should mandate NERC to conduct a retroactive forensic audit and investigation of electricity delivered, invoiced, revenue collected and settlements made to the market participants from October 1, 2013, to date. This exercise, it is hoped, will unveil the leakages and the culprits will be required to refund misappropriated funds.
According to the committee, NERC has failed to enforce its authority as a regulator by applying appropriate penalties and sanctions to defaults by market participants. This has resulted in laxity in compliance with the rules, regulations and orders instituted by the agency. “NERC regulation of market participants must be on real-time basis rather than periodic request for information. Responsible supervisory officers must be assigned and charged with the task of ensuring compliance,” it said.
It also recommended that collection of tariff must be automated immediately to correct the anomalies in the parameters and assumptions in deriving it. “Electricity tariff reviews must be in accordance with statutory provisions and consultations with all stakeholders. Consumer protection is very important, both on pricing and service delivery. The electricity tariff framework must be automated and made full-proof of human manipulation.”
On the N2.7 billion severance package for the NERC commissioners, the report noted that the committee adopted the remuneration packages as outlined in Section 42(1) (a) of the EPSRA. “The immediate past NERC commissioners should be paid their remuneration packages in accordance with Section 42 (1) (a) of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act and in line with the presidential approval of November 2006.
“However, the statutory position of the remuneration of future commissioners must be determined with respect to the standards set for such agencies by the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission and Pension Commission of Nigeria to avoid the ambiguities of the past.”
Also, the House in a separate resolution asked the federal government to check what it called “indiscriminate exploitation” of Nigerians by power generation and distribution companies. Murktar Dandutse, member of the committee, who moved a motion on the issue, called for investigation into the pledges made by the power generation and distribution firms when they took over the sector to ascertain the level of compliance with their investment promises.
The federal government had on May 28, 2012, entered into a three-year management contract with Manitoba, a Canadian company, to transform the TCN into a technically and financially viable company. The contract was to ensure that the firm would be able to evacuate the maximum capacity of generated power from the generating companies to the distribution firms and down to the teeming consumers throughout Nigeria on a 24-hour basis.
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