Our time is running out, Kutigi tells delegates

                                               The Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi

The Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, on Monday told delegates that the time allocated for the conference was running out.

Kutigi, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, who spoke during the opening ceremony of Monday’s plenary, said that because of this, it would not be in the interest of the conference for delegates to insist that they must speak on committees’ report before discussing or debating their recommendations and amendments.

The committee, which was inaugurated on March 17 by President Goodluck Jonathan, is expected to round off its activities and submit its reports on July 17.

However, discussions on the conference committees’ reports is expected to end in about two weeks even though only reports of eight out of the 20 committees have been discussed and recommendations adopted so far.

The delegates had on many occasions insisted that they would want to contribute to the debates on the reports, even when some of them participated in the drafting of such reports.

This has slowed down the activities of the conference, an action that Kutigi said must stop.

During Monday’s debate on the Committee on Energy, which was chaired by ex-Governor of Oyo State, Chief Rashidi Ladoja, Kutigi did not allow members of the committee to contribute to the debate.

The report of the committee indicated that it recommended a review of the privatisation process carried out by the Federal Government in the electricity sector, adding the Electric Power Sector Reforms Act 2005 should be amended.

It said, “Following the decay in the power sector starting from the mid-1980s, government decided to embark on power sector reforms. This gave birth to the National Electric Power Policy in 2002, the policy document which in turn led to the Electric Power Sector Reforms Act 2005 and the eventual privatization of the unbundled successor companies of NEPA.

“The current transmission capacity as submitted by the Federal Minister of Power is 6,870MW while the distribution is said to be 7325MW. Technical losses is reported to be at 12 per cent. The current installed generation capacity is said to be 9,920MW with available generation at 6,000MW. However, the peak generation standing at 3,962MW as at April 28, 2014 is disappointingly below the reported available generation of 6,000MW.

“The post-privatisation situation has so far not improved the power sector situation in the country. It has only magnified the cash flow deficit, poor gas supply and bigger ATC and C losses. The sector is consequently heading towards a major crisis.

“It is the observation of the committee that government’s efforts to implement the NEPP and enforce the EPSR 2005 have been challenging and results disappointing. The committee also believes that the entire process will not provide the rapid development of the electricity industry at the required rate that can take Nigeria into the league of developed nations. Consequently, the policy and Act need to be carefully reviewed. Certain provisions of the Act need to be amended, to address challenges presently affecting the performance of the sector.”

In his contribution, a delegate representing the South-West and a former chairman of PUNCH Nigeria Limited, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, stated that state governments should have a role to play in the management of the power sector.

He also faulted government for its poor privatisation exercise in the electricity sector.

Ogunshola said, “There is no mention of the state governments at all in this report. Shouldn’t the state governments have a role? For example, rural electrification seems to me like what should be a state government affair but we seem to want to leave everything to the Federal Government. That’s my first point, sir.

“My second point is about the government’s role in power sector. For over 40 years, we have left the management of the power sector in the hands of the Federal Government. These people who have been brought in have been there for just less than one and half years.

“So, I think we should give them a chance. Talking about all those enquiries that took place in the past yet nothing happened despite the fact that billions of dollars and naira were spent by the Federal Government on electricity projects in this country. What came out of it? So, we should distinguish between the concept of privatisation itself and whether some of the assets were sold to the wrong people.

“If the assets have been sold to the wrong people who could not deliver then that should be reviewed but that should not detract from the concept of privatisation as the way forward for our electricity industry.”