Power Reforms to Continue in Nigeria – FG

Fri, Sep 18, 2015
By publisher
4 MIN READ

BREAKING NEWS, Power

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President Muhammadu Buhari will not abandon power reform in Nigeria. He will fine tune it to make it more sustainable and profitable

By Anayo Ezugwu  |  Sep 28, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT  |

THE federal government is to continue with the reforms in the power sector in Nigeria contrary to speculations that President Muhammadu Buhari will abandon what previous administrations of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan did, The government will only fine tune some aspects of the power policy to address extant challenges and also initiate new measures to sustain private sector investments in the sector.

Godknows Igali, permanent secretary, ministry of power, in a report published in the ministry’s website, which contains his opening remarks at the electricity investment summit in Abuja, titled: ‘The Powering Africa Nigeria Investment Summit’ said the government  will take measures to stabilise existing developments in the sector.

Igali explained that as part of such commitment to continuity, the government would further push for the sanctity of the regulatory environment to give investors comfort. “We want to assure you that President Buhari has reiterated that his government would do everything to make the environment in the power sector better for our investors.

“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. “You can be sure that government, on its part, will continue to refine anything that needs to be refined in order to enable you do your business in Nigeria. We are also looking at diversification of our power base, very soon, we will commence a coal power plant, and there are a lot of hydro and solar power sources too.”

Igali also spoke about improvement in gas supply to thermal generation companies in the sector, saying: “Gas had been a major problem but the good news is that gas is becoming available. We engaged the gas people and today, we have more gas than we ever had and we thank the NNPC for that.”

Some Nigerians at the summit also provided a perspective on how the new administration could consolidate the reforms in the sector. One of them is Barth Nnaji, former minister of power who also developed the blueprint for the power road map in 2010. He is asking the government to consider decentralising Nigeria’s electricity transmission network. Nnaji, in his 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.

He explained that a situation where transmission projects are often delayed by poor government budgets and investors reluctantly put in their money to upgrade the transmission network would eventually impede the growth of the sector. The former minister 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.

“We say transmission constraints are because the transmission network is radial, which means, it is not looped and as a result if something happens somewhere, there can be failure in power supply. 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.

“What we are saying is that there should be a way to have the private sector come in. 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. The National Control Centre, System Operator among others will still be in place but being able to fund the sector is critical, and the amount of money available for the transmission is very little,” Nnaji said.

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