SAN FRANCISCO, August 26, (THEWILL) –Â The Federal Government said on Monday that it was fully ready to overhaul the power sector and has set aside a whopping $1.6 billion to be specifically deployed to expand power transmission facilities in the country.
Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, made the disclosure after the meeting of the Presidential Action Committee on Power (PACP) chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The meeting was to deliberate on the expansion of the existing transmission network in Nigeria to ensure that all the power generating plants being built and commissioned are able to pull out power.
Nebo said the special fund are substantially among funding which came in form of loans from the World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (ADB), Euro Bond Issue and Chinese Exim Bank as well as the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC).
The minister stated that the Federal Government was also happy with the pace of the privatisation going on in the sector, saying “we had such a significant compliance of all the proffered bidders who bought the GENCOS and the DISCOS as you can very well tell.” He said most of them paid up thus putting the power sector of the country in the private sector domain.
“We believe that this is very good for the country. We are celebrating that. The entire nation is agog with it. The international community is amazed that this miracle could happen in Nigeria and we are so happy that everybody sees that it was a fragile situation because no county in Africa has taken the quantum leap to do the entire generation and distribution company utilities like that in one fell swoop,” Nebo said.
“The government of President Goodluck Jonathan should be commended for the courage and the boldness and the dexterity of purpose to ensure that this has happened and it is happening, we thank God.”
The minister said  the meeting, having being briefed by the Transmission Council of Nigeria (TCN), explored possibilities of what is needed to make sure that the capacity of all the power generated now and in the future are harnessed while taking note of the prevailing funding gaps.
He also expressed gratitude to the President and National Council on Privatization (NCP), Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) and Federal Ministries of Power and Finance and Petroleum for ensuring that “much of what is needed to do these things is being put in place.”
The minister, who acknowledged that there still challenges that needed to be tackled, such as vandalisation of the power delivery infrastructure, however noted that the more benefit will accrue to Nigerians, even surpassing that of the GSM, once the privatisation of the power sector is complete.
“It is going to re-energise the entire economy. The whole manufacturing and industrial sector of the country will begin to boom and in addition to that small and medium scale enterprises will begin to spring up all over the place. So there is a lot to celebrate and with these things in the hands of the private sector, they are going to deliver power,” he reassured.
According to Nebo, “the only reason why they would make their money is to ensure that power is delivered to the people and once the people are getting power, the more their profit, the more incentive they have to ensure that whatever needs to be beefed up is beefed up to ensure that power is available to Nigerians.”
