As FG is set to reverse the sale of DISCOs and GENCOs, it shows the highest form of corruption and mismanagement that continue to pester in their management. Go to their offices and see mismanagement and corruption personified, poor customer services and daylight bribery, before a meter is issued to a customer and so on.
There are 11 electricity distribution companies in Nigeria. Majority of them violated the agreement they entered with FG. There are over 20 electricity generating companies in Nigeria today but the top six GenCos providing the country with electricity are Egbin Power Limited, Transcorp Power, Shiroro, Kainji/Jebba, Sapele and Geregu. They have also failed to inject money into power generation and are begging government for funds.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not against privatisation of NEPA, but I am certainly not happy with the hurried way the government sold the utility corporation without putting it in good shape so that the private hands that will buy it will have a smooth and easy take up.
I was against selling the power corporation to former leaders, cronies and incompetent men by the Jonathan administration.
The past government didn’t rehabilitate the power plants before selling them. All money set aside were stolen by officials. The government refused to listen. We said they should take a cue from global trend. Almost all countries around the world began their power reforms from different starting points with a long history of handing over relatively well managed power corporations.
In contrast, Nigeria is privatising inherited pieces of the old NEPA systems, a derelict corporation where power generation was allowed to dip below 3500mw .
Nigeria will be the only nation in the world that sold its utility corporation at such an abysmal low power generation level, 3500MW to be precise.
Privatization of the Power and Natural Gas Industries around the world has a starting point which include: industry structure, wholesale market, labour and management relations, regulatory framework, privatization objectives and privatization methods.
Nigeria was so much in a hurry to sell out the entire system without taking a holistic appraisal of the likely consequences of the exercise to the nation.
And this explains why the country will remain in darkness for a very long time!
Aliyu Nuhu write from Abuja, Nigeria.
