THE second day of the ongoing Senate probe
into alleged corruption in the power sector
was on Wednesday disrupted by intermittent
power outages.
There were power cuts two times within the
space of six minutes between 2.20pm and
2.26pm. A third outage occurred at 3.12pm.
At a point, the chairman of the Senate
committee handling the probe, Senator
Abubakar Kyari, asked the chief executives of
the power generating and distribution firms
present at the venue, “Are you tired? Are you
guys calling your people to do this?”
Moments after Kyari spoke, two subsequent
power outages occurred at 3:26pm and
3:31pm.
The probe panel members were forced to
receive presentations using lights from media
cameras and rechargeable lamps.
In his presentation, the Director-General of the
Bureau for Public Enterprises, Mr. Benjamin
Dikki, told the committee he needed time to
present the figures as to how much it cost to
privatise Nigeria’s power plants.
He said he could not give the figures at the
sitting because he did not know how much it
cost to build the plants.
He spoke in a response to a question from a
committee member, who asked the DG to “tell
Nigerians how much the power plants were
sold because during Tuesday’s hearing, the
committee was told $USD 8.23bn was what
was spent on these plants prior to the
privatisation.’’
“I do not know how much the (power) plants
were constructed. I will make available the
documents later,” the BPE DG answered.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Power, Godknows Igali, had denied
speculations that the Federal Government was
planning a wholesale privatisation of the
Transmission Company of Nigeria.
He said, “I want to correct an impression,
government has no plan to privatise TCN;
what we are doing is to work out an
arrangement so that the market will pay for
services.”
Representatives of the various generation and
distribution companies, who made
submissions at the hearing, decried the
difficult business environment in the country.
They said that they had been running at a
loss because they were not allowed to charge
tariffs that would help them recoup part of
their investments in the sector.
Making a submission on behalf of the
distribution companies, the Managing Director
of Enugu Distribution Company, Mr. Robert
Dickerman, said he and his colleagues had
been running at a deficit of “N20bn per
month” because over 50 percent of electricity
consumers had no have meters while about 30
per cent were not even on the billing system
of the service providers.
“We are also aware that some of our staff
collect N5, 000 from consumers who are
stealing power to write off some bills, we are
working to stop all that,” Dickerman said.
He also lamented that the N100bn subsidy
injection promised by the Federal Government
had not been provided.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ibadan
Electricity Generating Company, Mr. Adeoye
Fagbembi, who made a presentation on behalf
of the six GENCOs present at the hearing, also
lamented the huge losses he said they had
been recording.
However, the BPE DG said the Central Bank of
Nigeria had paid N5bn out of the N100bn
promised by the government.
He agreed that the operators had been
running at a loss.
According to him, between 40 to 60 percent of
power generated is lost to transmission
because of dilapidated infrastructure and
obsolete equipment.
Dikki explained that government had
envisaged the losses to be incurred at the
initial stages, hence it was included in the
performance agreement reached with the
investors.
In his presentation, the Chairman of Nigerian
Electricity Regulatory Commission, Sam
Amadi, refuted allegations that the TCN would
soon be completely privatised by the
government.
He said government had no such plan
because of the sensitivity of that particular
component of the sector.
At the end of the day’s session, the chairman
of the Senate panel told reporters that the
committee would investigate the immediate
and remote causes of the power outages,
which disrupted the day’s session.
“The power outages experienced here today
further underscores the relevance of this
committee at this critical time but we shall
investigate whether they are deliberate or not,”
Kyari said.
He added that proper public hearing proper on
the sector would hold in due course. http://www.punchng.com/news/power-outage-stops-senate-power-probe/

I'm not sure it is a coincidence that power supply ceased for about 4 times during hearing. I'm not too sure also that it is a deliberate attempt to frustrate the committee during the meeting and I will be glad, personally, if the committee will investigate the irregular tripping off of the power supply when "probing" of the power sector is ongoing.

Failed body language electricity

Na them do am now....useless tiefs that don't want to be probed.. smh

Lol

The government should ensure every household gets a pay per use meter. It should be property of the household, that way these power companies will stop lying that they operate at a loss.

For the month of August , total hours of light was not up to 120 hours cumulatively they brought bill of 1300.

“I do not know how much the (power) plants
were constructed. I will make available the
documents later,”

Incompetence