Investors in the power sector yesterday told the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Power how they have been losing N20 billion monthly due to inherent problems affecting the operations of the various components of the power system in the country.
Managing Director of the Enugu Distribution Company (DISCO), Robert Dickerman, who spoke on behalf of other distribution companies, said the deficits were being incurred because over 50 per cent of Nigerians were not metered to ensure proper billing for their electricity consumption.
Yesterday’s proceeding was disrupted by intermittent outages as light went off eight times during the session of the probe panel attended by investors, regulators and other agencies of government. Dickerman also lamented that apart from the consumers who were not correctly billed due to lack of meters, over 30 per cent of electricity consumers were not paying electricity bills at all because they were not connected to the billing system and were using power illegally.
He added that the N100 billion fund injection into the sector, promised by the Federal Government, has not been fulfilled. Mr. Adeoye Fagbembi, who spoke on behalf of the six electricity generating companies (GENCOs), said transmission losses between them and DISCOs had become a big issue.
But the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had paid N5 billion out of the N100 billion promised by the government. He, however, admitted that the investors were presently running at a loss, adding that the losses at initial stages were envisaged as embedded in the performance agreement reached with the investors. On his part, the Chairman, National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, refuted allegations that the Federal Government would soon privatise the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). According to him, the government has no such plans because of the sensitivity of the component of the sector, particularly as it affects national development.
However, the intermittent power outages, which marred yesterday’s proceeding, angered the Senate committee. The intermittent power failure compelled the committee members to resort to the usage of recharged lamps and phone camera lights to illuminate the venue of the session. The session, which was the last day of the interactive session the Senate committee had with stakeholders in the power sector, started at about 11:30a.m. and ended abruptly at 4p.m. due to the power failure.
The outage started at 2p.m. when the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, was making a submission on behalf of the various electricity companies. The chairman of the committee, Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC Borno North), was also interrupted by the power outage while commenting on issues raised by some of the stakeholders.
The committee has cancelled the proposed session that would have taken place today perhaps because of the embarrassment witnessed at yesterday’s session. Angered by the development, Kyari, after the session, told journalists that the committee would investigate what led to the power outages during the session. “The power outages experienced here (yesterday) further underscores the relevance of this committee at this critical time, but we shall investigate whether they are deliberate or not,” Kyari said.
The Senate had set up the Ad hoc Committee to carry out a holistic investigation into the allegations of questionable practices in the power sector and to determine how much money was spent on the sector from 1999 to date.
Meanwhile, a former chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Power, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, has backed the ongoing probe of the power sector by the Senate. Elumelu, who spoke yesterday on a Channels TV morning show, said he had enough documented evidence to assist senators investigating the power sector from 1999 till date.
According to him, the information available at his disposal would help the Senate in unearthing the rot in the power sector. Speaking on the controversial report of the committee he headed, Elumelu said, “It is intact and undiluted.” He said: “We didn’t dilute it and we were very blunt in our recommendations to the anti-graft agencies who were surprised by what my committee unearthed.
“When we made our recommendations, asking the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to further investigate and even the EFCC operatives who followed us to the sites of abandoned contracts were very bitter.
“Let me tell you the truth; in Nigeria, we must change. President Muhammadu Buhari made his point by asking for change. The change is that we must not do things in a normal way; we must deviate, we must leave that comfort zone and come back to the challenges that we are being faced with.
“There is no reason why after spending $13.2 billion as it were and we are still talking about 3,500 megawatts. In Brazil, they spent only $12 billion and they have 12,000 megawatts of electricity. So, why can’t we have the same in Nigeria?”
