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The Senate on Thursday described the privatisation of the power sector in Nigeria as a total failure, chiding power sector operators, including Generation Companies (Gencos), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), and Distribution Companies (Discos) for failing to deliver reliable electricity.
The senators’ position was sequel to the presentation of a report by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe that investigated frequent national grid collapses and related issues.
They insisted that the players in the sector have added no significant value to the sector, warning that it might propose legislative measures to repeal the policy.
The red chamber insisted that it would probe the activities of Gencos, the TCN and Discos, for failing to deliver reliable electricity, threatening to come up with legislative measures, including new laws.
It claimed that the privatisation, introduced in 2013, has plunged Nigeria deeper into darkness, leaving citizens without solutions.
The Upper Chamber directed the Abaribe panel to conduct a holistic investigation into the challenges of the sector.
The panel was asked to come up with recommendations that should cover possible reversal of privatisation and declaration of an emergency in the power sector and report at plenary in six weeks.
In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio who was showing visible annoyance said, “They have added no value at all.
Akpabio and other senators lampooned the power sector, especially the Discos, just as they said that the operators had forced Nigeria more into darkness since 2013 when the policy took off, leaving the citizenry “helpless.”
The President of the Senate said: “Why do state governors and communities buy transformers, hand them over Discos and still pay for installation? The people who took over (power sector) are just making money from those transformers and they are not adding value at all.
“Why do we hand over Gencos and the TCN can’t move what they generate? Why are Discos not investing in transformers, or we have to pay the Discos for transformers bought by Nigerians? We can make the laws, we can reverse the laws and ask the federal government to take back those things from them.”
Abaribe attributed the persistent grid failures to factors such as aging infrastructure, abandoned projects worth trillions of naira, regulatory inefficiencies, security lapses, and lack of modern monitoring systems like SCADA, among others.
Sunday Aborisade
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