By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has urged the executive arm of the federal government to be cautious in the privatisation of power companies as well as other intervention plans.
Dogara made the call yesterday while declaring open, an investigative public hearing on the need to halt the plan to raise a federal government- Secured Bond of N309 billion, to finance the shortfall in the country’s electricity market.
He said: “For the benefit of the average Nigerian, a market shortfall is defined as the invoiced amount of electricity transmitted to the distribution companies in any given month, less the amount remitted by the DisCos to pay the market participants for electricity supplied.”
Dogara, who was represented by the Minority Whip, Hon. Yakubu Barde, said “unfortunately, since the unbundling of PHCN and transfer of the businesses to the privately-operated Successor Companies on November 1, 2013, we have not had a good report from the electricity market.”
“Duration of uninterrupted supply is average Six to Eight hours per day. Metering of customers is dismal. Crazy estimated bills are used to exploit consumers. Generation capacity has not improved; yet, tariffs were increased in February 2016.
“Our concerns in the House of Representatives are, which should come first, stopping the bleeding of the market revenue by putting controls in place or raising a Bond to cover the incessant shortfall?; Why is this Bond secured by the federal government in a privatised market operated by private entities?”
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, however, said in his presentation that the quest to resolve the payment gap in Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) that threatened the long term sustainment and development of the NESI led to what NBET had done before the stop order from the House of Representatives.
Chairman, House Committee on Power, Hon. Dan Asuquo, earlier in a welcome address said; “It is pertinent to note that we wonder what role the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Company (NERC) is playing in this whole process. If N309 billion is injected into the market today, it would only reduce the exposure from N700 billion to N391 billion.”