http://www.gatewaytoafrica.com/featured/nigerian-power-privatisation-on-track.htm

On Wednesday, the Nigerian government announced the five successful bidders for the country’s power generation plants. This is part of a $1bn sell-off of Nigeria’s thermal and hydropower generation facilities.

Bidders for the power generation plants included consortiums from Nigeria, Britain, USA, China and Russia. The sale of one further generation company has been delayed.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan had promised to upgrade the countries power sector when he was elected in 2010, and everything seems to be on track. Nigeria needs to upgrade their electrical generation infrastructure to avoid power outages which are hampering growth. Currently many consumers are forced to rely on generators.

South Africa a country with a third of the population produces more than ten times the amount of power as Nigeria. Upgrading Nigeria’s power generating industry could help the country to achieve double digit growth, the country’s economy is already increasing at around 6 per cent a year.

Atedo Peterside, chairman of the technical committee on privatisation said “this should help unleash the long-term in private sector investment activity in the country generally”.

The privatisation of state assets will include the sale of Nigeria’s power distribution network, which will be split between 11 new distribution companies. The preferred bidders for the distribution companies will be announced in mid-October.

What does this mean? Is it good news for Nigeria/Nigerians