Senate President Ahmad Lawan says the time has come to
review or “probably reverse” the privatisation of the power sector.
Speaking before Gabriel Suswam, senator representing Benue
north east, moved a motion entitled “Power sector recovery plan and the impact
of COVID-19 pandemic” on Tuesday, Lawan said if the distribution and generating
companies are left the way they are, the country would not have power for the
next 10 years.
The sector was privatised in 2013 with the distribution and
generation sub-sectors sold to investors. The move by the federal government
was to enhance power distribution in the country.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the way the sector has
fared, the senate president said distribution companies do not have capacity to
deliver.
“We gave them our common patrimony and they still come back
as DisCos and GenCos to look for money from the public. The time has come to
review and probably reverse this privatisation, if we leave them for the next
10 years there would be no power in Nigeria,” he said.
“We expected efficiency, effectiveness in power supplies but
probably on both sides, maybe the purchase agreements were not adhered to on
both sides. What is obvious is that the DisCos particularly have no capacity at
the moment to supply us power. The GenCos have challenges too.
“If there are areas we must intervene as a government must
be seriously justified. The way it is I think there is need to review this
privatisation to see what has happened. Something is certainly not right.”
Moving his motion, Suswam said power supply is a critical
factor in the management of COVID-19 patients who are kept in treatment
centres.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has further impacted negatively on
NESI as the DisCos reported a 50% loss of their average monthly revenue
collection for the months of Match and April 2020 respectively even as the
Federal Government continues to harp on the need for a stable electricity
supply,” he said.
The senate mandated its committee on power to probe all
interventions by the federal government in the sector “with a view to
ascertaining the adequacy of such interventions and their desired impact.”
It also urged the federal government to shelve its planned
electricity tariff increase owing to hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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