Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, yesterday, disclosed that the time is ripe for Nigerians to enjoy the full benefits of the privatisation of the country’s power sector. Blueprint recalls that former President Olusegun Obasanjo privatised the sector during his regime. Though the minister said the power sector had greatly improved under the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration, he,however, said more still needed to be done to bring about improved power supply in the country. Fashola, who spoke in Abuja while inaugurating the new Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Professor James Momoh, called on the NERC’s management to tackle all the recurring problem of metering in the sector.
The minister, who also admitted that some households were not connected to the national grid, said with proper meter governance and improved power supply, all Nigerians would enjoy the full benefit of the privatisation of the power sector. Fashola said: “I value the work you do, but sadly, I need to ask you to do more. Nigerians need to see more of the benefits of the privatization of the power sector.” In his acceptance speech, Momoh, a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Howard University, United States of America, vowed to tackle the problem of inadequate electricity tariff in the power sector. He said: “The tariff is just an example, it is not a challenge that you cannot solve. We have no choice, we have to look at what computes a tariff , tariff is not a guess work, there is a calculation you do to get there, so that is an idea.”
