Jonathan Rolls Out Nine Month Plan On Power
Fidelis Mac-Leva
29 June 2010, Daily Trust
Following the assumption of full responsibilities of Nigeria's troubled Power sector, President Goodluck Jonathan constituted a Presidential Action Committee to oversee the new reforms in the sector. To underscore the enormous task before it, Jonathan elected to head the all important committee which has the minister of state for Power, Nuhu Somo Way, as vice chairman.
Other members of the Committee include: Finance Minister, Olusegun Aganga; Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; the Director General of Public Procurement [BPP], Mr. Emeka Ezeh as well as his counterpart from the Bureau for Public Enterprise [BPE], Dr. Christopher Anyawu(who is on suspension now).
Explaining the composition of the Presidential Committee Wya said: "We are getting the Central Bank of Nigeria to be involved to facilitate our transactions, as most of our accounts are at the apex bank. We also want to sort out issues about clearing our goods, to also ensure that whoever is giving us power, his investment is protected. We have the Bureau for Public Procurement which is also part of the Committee to ensure that procurement is processed quickly."
He further explained: "We have the Ministry of Finance which is in charge of financing our operations so that whenever there are challenges, the ministry will handle it quickly and then we have people from the private sector that are coming to assist us. So, we expect that the Presidential Action Committee on Power with the Acting president as Chairman and me as deputy chairman will ensure that all issues militating against the prompt execution of power projects are concluded within the shortest possible time." Although mixed reactions had trailed the retention of the Power Ministry's portfolio by the President, stakeholders were united in their opinion that the decision underscored Jonathan's desire to deliver sustainable electricity to Nigerians.
As Nigerians waited with baited breadth, the Presidential Action Committee on power on June 2, 2010, presented a Nine month action plan on the power sector. The Action Plan, a copy of which Daily Trust obtained, reiterated the pledge by the President to make light available to Nigerian homes and businesses within a short time.
Specifically, the plan set forth a nine-month timeline for achieving results in the power sector reforms through the following objectives: To establish and sustain effective communication with stakeholders and the public on the Action Plan; make every Nigerian electricity consumer a responsible customer complying with tariff and service obligations and to establish a competitive power procurement framework that delivers increased power generation to meet increasing customer demand.
To achieve these objectives, the Action Plan hopes to fast-track the completion of the moribund NIPP projects to deliver additional 576MW by December this year [2010] and to fast-track the rehabilitation of PHCN generation companies to deliver 730MW within 9-12 months.
On power transmission and distribution as contained in the report, the Presidential Action Committee proposed to fast-track the procurement and deployment of shunt reactors and capacitor banks at the identified nodes to drastically reduce incidences of grid system collapse. It also proposes to fast-track the delivery of 360MVA additional distribution capacity within a period of 9-12 months.
One interesting thing about the report is the "irreversible steps" proposed by the Presidential Action Committee in realising its objectives. These include: Resolving and reconstituting the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, resolving labour issues, inaugurating the boards of the PHCN successor companies and expediting action on the power sector privatisation process and the establishment of a competitive procurement process for new power in addition to the NIPP.
The overall goal of the Presidential Action Plan on Power, as contained therein, is to achieve improved power supply within 9-12 months; significantly improve supply and stability in the medium term and to achieve reliability and sustainability in the long term.
The federal government had rolled out a similar "Strategic Plan" to meet the target generation capacity of 6000MW by December last year. Among other objectives the plan was based on optimizing the existing capacity within the host PHCN power plants through an aggressive repair and rehabilitation exercise, reinforcing the transmission and distribution network as well as completion of on-going projects.
When the strategic plan failed to achieve the target generation of 6000MW by December last year, the Power Ministry attributed it to a number of challenges, particularly shortage of gas supply to power the thermal station. Other challenges advanced by the Power Ministry for the failure to deliver on the 6000MW of electricity to Nigerians were, infrastructure inadequacy, proper funding and administration as well as procurement challenges.
It is against the backdrop of the failure of previous policies in the power sector, coupled with other challenges that some analysts see nothing different with the reforms contained in the new plan of Action rolled out by the Presidential Action Committee.
This has further raised questions over the huge financial investments that have been committed to the power sector in the past with little or no significant results. As one analyst puts it: "Now that government has introduced another action plan to improve electricity, Nigerians are waiting to see whether President Jonathan will deliver the lights after nine months, or come out to apologise to Nigerians over another failed promise."
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