Minister of
Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, yesterday re-asserted
that the challenges plaguing the power sector in the country were mainly
man
-made and not technical.
Fashola, who
stated this at the distinguished public lecture organised by the Department of
Economics, University of Lagos (UNILAG), said there was no mystery in achieving
stable and reliable electricity, except that all stakeholders must conform with
the guidelines of the sector’s roadmap.
He said the
sector’s roadmap aimed to get more incremental power, stable power and
uninterrupted power, adding that achieving all these requires step-by-step
approach.
The
minister, who noted that the issue of stable power in the country was
characterised by many years of broken promises, affirmed that the sector was
making progress in power transmission and distribution.
He said:
“There are numerous challenges facing the power sector in the country. Most of
them are man-made and not technical, including the issue of containers left in
the port for about 10 years, explosion of pipelines, badly-installed equipment,
cancelled tariff and electricity theft, among others. If men and women created
these problems, in my view, only men and women can solve them.”
Fashola, who
also cautioned those clamouring for cancellation of the privatisation to desist
from such act, said the consequences far- outweighed their expectations.
He said:
“Nigeria will be seen as an unserious nation by investors. I fully support
privatisation of the power sector. The idea was well intended but it was
delivered with deception. Many people believe that once privatisation is done,
power becomes stable, but it was not so as there are many processes involved.
Rather than cancel it, we will reengineer it. What we are more concerned about
now is incremental power.
“In the heat
of campaign, we rushed and made promises that the All Progressives Congress
(APC) will do a better job, little did I know that I will inherit the problem.”
Also at the event, Fashola said the Federal Government had planned to mete out
severe sanctions against perpetual defaulters in the payment of electricity
bills.
He stated:
“If you don’t pay for electricity, you have violated a law. But we are now
trying to make that law stronger, and we are looking at how to include fines.
We want to make it easier to comply than to violate.”
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