Yemisi Izuora
Authorities in Nigeria are working out plans to create access to foreign exchange and also provide uninterrupted supply of gas to the power sector.
The Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation, said this and other plans are expected to support other efforts to improve access to electricity supply across the country.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Senator Emmanuel Udende, that as part of its ongoing review of the performance of privatised government assets, including power companies, necessary legislative steps are also being taking to resolve the N1.6 trillion debt owed Egbin Power Plc by Federal Government.
Senator Udende, stated these when he led his Committee on an oversight visit to Egbin Power plant in Ikorodu, Lagos State.
The Committee had been visiting the companies and assets privatized by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to ascertain their performance post-privatisation, with a view to improving them.
He admitted that government owed Egbin a whopping N1.6 trillion, an issue he said the senate needed to look into to find a lasting solution.
Udende stated, “We go around to see for ourselves the performance of these assets since privatisation. We’ve been to some of them. We’ve been briefed about the performance of Egbin Power Plc and we are quite impressed with this particular company. The resilience shown by the management of this company is quite commendable.
“I’m quite impressed with what they have done. They are owed a very huge sum of money, N1.6 trillion. It’s quite huge and they are still operating. I like that spirit. I’m quite impressed that this debt is being owed and yet they are operating.
“I wonder how. I will go back once we get the full report. We’ll look at what we can do to ameliorate that situation.
“When we get back, we’ll take a look at it. We are legislators. We can either come by way of motion or legislation. We’ll look at it holistically. We can also invite that company with BPE. We’ll get solutions. We are legislators.”
Udende said Egbin and other power plants faced challenges such as vandalism, inconsistency of the grid, gas supply, and forex constraints, assuring that the committee would come up with a holistic solution to the issues.
Chief Executive Officer of Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Mokhtar Bounour, revealed that the company had been in constant interaction with relevant stakeholders in the Nigerian power sector, including the legislators, in order to improve the sector.
Bounour reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the stability of the grid and the growth of the country’s economy.
He said the power industry in general was in need of support to overcome the challenges that generation and distribution companies faced.
He listed access to forex, huge unpaid debt, vandalism that affected grid stability, as well as access to gas at the right domestic price as major issues confronting the Generation Companies (Gencos).
“So all these have to be on the table and we hope that they (the senate committee) can help us in escalating this,” Bounour said.
Director at Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Kola Adesina, called for a whole-of-community approach to fish out vandals involved in destroying power equipment in the country, in order to guarantee stability of the national grid.
Adesina also called for increased investment inflow into the sector. He said there was need for a concerted community-based conversation on tackling issues of vandalism and energy theft in the country.
“Once the security people start to do something in that regard, we need to make it a bottom-up approach,” Adesina said.
“Somehow, midway, we can now have a consensual approach to this. It’s a value system thing and it needs to be addressed frontally,” he added.
He commended the federal government for its willingness to listen to operators in the sector and take act to address their challenges.