Power outage: Senate slams GenCos, TCN, DisCos, says they add no value

• threatens to reverse privatisation of sector

The Senate has slammed the generating companies (GenCos), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the distribution companies (DisCos) over power outages, saying they add no value.

It came close to admitting on Thursday that the privatisation of the power sector is a total failure, threatening to initiate legislative measures, including new laws, to repeal the policy.

“They have added no value at all”, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, led his colleagues in bashing the key operators in the power chain, from the generating companies (GenCos), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to the distribution companies (DisCos).

Lawmakers said the operators had forced Nigeria more into darkness since 2013 when the policy took off, leaving the citizenry “helpless.”

“Why do state governors and communities buy transformers, hand them over to DisCos and still pay for installation?

“The people who took over (power sector) are just making money from those transformers and they are not adding value at all.

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“Why do we hand over GenCos and the TCN can’t move what they generate? Why are DisCos not investing in transformers, or we have to pay the DisCos for transformers bought by Nigerians?”, Akpabio further asked.

He went on, “We can make the laws, we can reverse the laws and ask the Federal Government to take back those things (power sector) from them.”

Senators expressed their anger as the report into frequent Grid Collapse in the country was presented on the floor by the Chairman, Committee on Power, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe.

The committee reported that each time the grid collapsed, it would cost the nation around $25million or N42billion to restart the country’s three generating plants.

Abaribe listed many factors responsible for the frequenct collapse of the grid, ranging from ageing plants, abandoned projects that cost trillions of dollars, regulatory gaps, security of power infrastructure/vandalism, lack of supervisory control and data acquisition to financial prudence.

The committee recommended “decisive actions” by the government, including making saboteurs both within and outside the system to pay heavily for their culpability.

However, the Senate stood down the consideration of the report and rather directed Abaribe to conduct a holistic investigation into the challenges of the sector and come up with recommendations that should cover possible reversal of privatisation and declaration of an emergency in the power sector.

Contributing to the discussion, former governor of Edo State, Sen. Adams Oshiomhole, said Nigeria’s power sector privatisation policy was strange and left Nigerians bewildered.

He said he could never understand a privatisation policy that milked people by forcing them to pay for transformers, the cost of installation, blackouts and frequent hikes in tariffs.

“The Discos are out for profit while they make our people suffer.

“I never imagined that a private person will collect money for services he did not render and Nigerians are helpless”, Oshiomhole stated.

The former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), shared a personal experience of how he had procured a transformer for a property he occupied in Abuja, despite being a privileged person.

“After the procurement, it becomes the property of AEDC (Abuja Electricity Distribution Company).

“I even had to pay money from my pocket to connect the transformer to the grid.

“We have to revisit this ill-advised privatisation and we are going to advise Mr President in line with his Renewed Hope Agenda, to review the power sector privatisation”, Oshiomhole recommended.

On his part, Sen. Abdul Ningi noted that the absurdities of the power sector would only worsen so long as nobody was punished for the glaring lapse

“Over the years, nobody has been punished for the lapses of the power sector.

“Reports alone without sanctions will not allow Nigeria to make any headway. The implication is that the problems will continue”, the lawmaker told his colleagues.

The Senate resolved to step down the report and gave Abaribe’s committee an additional six weeks to do a holistic investigation into the issues in the power sector and report back for further legislative actions.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE