By; Engr. Y S ADAMU DAURA
There are two agreements signed by the Discos and Gencos based on their submissions to win the bids they submitted.
These agreements are: 1. Commercial
2. Technical
In these same agreements, there are provisions to retake these companies if they fail to deliver on the key performance indicators they set for themselves in order to win the bids.
The tenure for this is five years, after which an audit of the indicators or parameters will be done. This was not done to today.
Ministers of power in colorations with the civil servants blocked these from the president. The former vice president Osibanjo being the chairman NCP hid under some legal opinion to block review of the privatisation together with Fashola.
The problem we are having in this country is that we have people in power whose personal interest is above the country and its people. These people have formed a dangerous cartel that is killing this country.
This privatisation is not total. FGN has still 40 per cent stake and it appears our elected officials don’t care about it.
The National Assembly too played a role in this. They called several public hearings on the power companies not for the sake of the country or the people but as an extortion exercise to get their cut from the power companies.
Above is the real and true situation we are in.
Nobody I repeat nobody in the government or National Assembly has interest of the country and its people. It is all greed and corruption.
From 1999 to date this country has lost all legacy infrastructures. The only one standing is the power sector and this is also on its deathbed with the current attitude of our elected officials.
The consequences will be far reaching. We destroyed railways and we are borrowing money to rebuild it. If the power sector is allowed to go this way we will have no money to rebuild it because it is capital extensive and time consuming.
It is obvious to all of us whether professional engineers or laymen that all is not well with the power companies and no matter what the government will do by dodging the issue will not work. It is foolish to continue pursuing something that will fail and fail badly.
Billions of dollars have been spent on the power sector since 1999 with no results. Clearly from this one can see a well entrenched cartel in the power sector that is even more deadly than the subsidy cartel.
For the information of Nigerians licences have issued to many companies to build power plants since 1999 and none of them is able to do it. This shows you that there is a big problem.
The recent electricity act won’t change anything.
I want draw the attention of the government and in deed the president that all over the world and especially Europe they are reviewing the Energy sector. France has never privatised its power sector. UK is working to nationalised the power sector and some many countries.
If the president is serious about making this country to work again he must tackle this power sector.
It is time we put this country first
It’s time we put our people first
It’s time to do once and for all actions that will save the power sector
It’s time to set aside any sentiment, connection etc to do the right thing
It’s time to retake over these companies. We have good and competent manpower to save the power sector.
Let’s us start all over again
Engr. Y S Adamu Daura wrires from Kaduna
