‘Privatisation, Not Nigeria’s Power Sector Problem’

The acting Director-Gen
eral, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr Vincent Akpotaire,  has said that privatisation was not the problem affecting the power sector in the country.
He told  newsmen in Abuja that the long-standing decay in the sector was the main cause of the present challenges facing the sector.
Akpotaire said that privatisation became the only option open to the government due to the need to have a process that would be self-sustaining and responsive and make electricity supply transparent and investment sustainable.
“Privatisation is a process, it rides on the back of sector reform and sector reform is a necessity that arises from failure of infrastructure basically.
“Privatisation is not the problem we are facing today; the problem we are facing today is getting the system that is now in place to run without glitches; to remove the bottlenecks in the system, because you are moving from one completely different system to a new one where the people take their obligations seriously.
“Power is not stable yet, it cannot possibly be stable two years after privatisation. I think Nigerians should understand that.
“Power cannot be stable in this country after 40 years of decay and rot two years after privatisation.’’
Akpotaire said that the present administration had taken full charge of the situation by working out modalities to solve some of the issues in the sector.
According to him, government is taking adequate steps to ensure that the new system that is in place begins to work properly in order to improve power supply.
He advised the Federal Government to create incentives for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to strengthen its capacity to transmit more than it was doing presently.
“Government can continue to fund the existing infrastructure, but at the same time government can encourage Public-Private Partnership in funding what was in the past called super grid.