The Senate is definitely displeased by the state of affairs in the electricity sector and has stated clear problems it believes should be tackled before any further injection of funds.
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The Senate thus halted any plans the Federal Government (FG) may be having of raising a secured N309 billion bond to finance the deficiencies in the electricity sector, instructing the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as well as the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Agency (NERC) to stop the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, NBET, form raising the bond.
For one, the increase in tariffs that have occurred twice since 2013 without significant improvement in any of the areas of investment, generation, transmission or distribution, has left them wondering where the funds were going and why results were not being achieved. Particularly, Senator Mustapha Bukar, representing Katsina North lamented the stagnant state of services in the sector.
Second, the Senate is worried that the FG’s proposed sale of bonds was only going to be paid as a charge on the market revenue stream, instead of the stakeholders concerned to cauterize the bleeding in revenue and improve the efficiency of operators.
Another source of concern was the effect, or rather lack of effect of the previous bailout funds to the tune of N213 billion given by the CBN through the Nigerian Electricity Sector Intervention (NESI). Without any tangible result from the use of that fund, the Senate is not convinced that the proposed bond will not suffer the same ill fate.
To further drive home the point, attention was drawn to the alarming rate at which market shortfall had continued to rise, which was calculated to be around N500 million monthly. With this and an expected rise in the shortfall, the bond may not really solve the problem for long.
“Continued incidence of market shortfall is a disincentive for new investors to venture the Nigerian electricity market. ‘’This implies that the projected generating capacity is an illusion. As a matter of fact, any increment in generating capacity would further aggravate and escalate the market shortfall,” Bukar said.
In addition to stopping the bond, the Senate also mandated its Committees on Power and Privatization to look into the performance of the all players in the power sector and compare with their performance agreement. It is hoped that with the moves of the Senate, the real problems of the sector can be unraveled and adequately dealt with.
maybe the senate is finally doing their job,members of the national assembly have at least 2 assistant that will help them,in doing their jobi.e is doing them researches,collecting informationfrom the statement of senator is not good enough.why not start from the beginning “WHY IS THE GENERATION OF ELECTRIC POWER IS DECLINING SINCE THIS GOVT TOOK OVER,GOVT SAID SABOTAGES BY DELTA MILITANT,THEN WE INVESTIGATE WHETHER THE GOVT IS TELLING THE TRUTH,FROM HERE WE MOVE ON.
As far I am concerned,the only good news here ,is that govt have allowed this Nigerian bulkshit Electricity trading plc of raising bond from the money market.from this we move on,some of those sabotage facilities can be replaced soonest,some independent power generation company will pressurizes the govt,if this is good for the goose,it is good for the gender,govt will says “we do not have the money because of budgetal problem or paucity of fund”,or we will break-up the raising of fund in stage (1) what is your balance sheet,how much do you generate from your internal revenue,what is the sum of your company’s debt,ONCE YOU PRESENT TO US YOUR MASTERPLAN FOR ELECTRICITY GENERATION.
WELL YOU POOR DEVIL, WE HAVE REVIEWED YOUR MASTERPLAN,AND WE WILL FACILITATES YOUR CREDIT FACILITES,AND THERE ARE CONDITIONS,AND ONE OF OUR CONDITIONS IS THAT YOU MUST UP-GRADE YOUR POWER GENERATION BY 30 % WITHIN 2 YRS OTHERWISE YOU GET LOST.
if you agree,we want you advises you to get a bridging fund from bank,not more than 10% of the total sum.you will get some money from the cbn,national electricity sector intervention about 80 %,but we want our money back{,if not,we will hand our over to dss,the most feared and respect security,they fears nobody}(,they wanted tobeat-up the governor of rivers state for obstructing justice),through your sales generation,or raising fund from the money marker or securitized debt through restructuring your debt,you can ALSO float on the stock market, the choice is yours,if you want to do business with us.or we get somebody to do the job for us.