The Federal Government has constituted a Power Investors’ Committee to tackle the challenges and drawbacks in the power Privatization, the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki, has revealed.
The DG said the Committee which is similar to the Bankers’ Committee in Nigeria, is chaired by the Vice-President and Chairman of the National Council on Privatization (NCP), Arc. Mohammed Namadi Sambo.
The Director General who was represented by the Head, Stakeholders Relations Unit of the Bureau, Alhaji Aliyu Maigari at an interactive session with members of the House Committee on Privatization and Commercialization, the new owners of PHCN successor companies and the BPE during the Committee’s oversight visit to the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IEDC) last Tuesday. He said that the Committee would meet quarterly to review issues and take critical decisions on the the privatised Power sector.
He said the membership was drawn from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET), Ministry of Power, Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and other relevant stakeholders.
The DG in an apparent response to a suggestion by the Committee for the immediate constitution of an all stakeholders’ committee to address the challenges faced in the power sector, said it would amount to a duplication of efforts to set up a similar committee.
Briefing the Committee members earlier, the Deputy Managing Director (DMD) of the IEDC, Mr. John Darlington informed the Committee that the Distribution Company was the biggest in the country with 1,073,673 customers.
He called on the government to take steps to make the generation and distribution power companies to be financially viable to enable them undertake aggressive investments in power infrastructure.
The DMD said this could be done through having a tariff structure that is cost reflective and recognizes current market situation as well as undertake sustainable investment in the transmission network to deliver generated capacity to distribution companies without
constraints.
He also called for vigilance by the distribution companies and the relevant authorities to combat vandalism and electricity theft which rob legitimate customers of power and revenues that will help sustain the market.
Darlington further called for the mediation by the government to delineate asset boundaries between the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and distribution companies for effective network operation.