on June 02, 2015 By Ediri
Ejoh
Worried by the dwindling fortune of the energy industry, experts
have called on the new government of President Muhammadu Buhari to critically
review the sector, as infrastructural decay, and other forms of irregularities
continue to threaten its growth.
In a telephone chat with Vanguard, Managing
Director/Chief Executive Officer, Sahara Power, Mr. Kola Adesina, said that the
National power infrastructure is inadequate for steady power supply in Nigeria.
“Aggregated available domestic gas
cannot wheel more than 5000 megawatts and the available transmission lines may
not take 5000 megawatts. There are however some new plants that may help
generation if there is gas,” he said.
He also stated that Nigerians must
learn to pay more in electricity tariff if we must move forward. “The only way
out is if government can afford to pay subsidy. I have been long enough in the
business to know that government will often wish to pay but will often and
always fail,” he added.
Adesina explained that the
electricity market is largely unmetered and there is no market or regulation
for non- existent or unmetered goods.
He also said that over 60 percent of
the power problem is tied to theft in the sector. According to him, “We must
stop stealing electricity. This is 60 percent of the problem. Even the elite,
people in authority, barracks, government offices, state houses, universities,
most Asian companies in Nigeria consume huge sums of energy without paying.
On his part, Managing Director/CEO,
Grew Relentech Specialist, oil and gas company, Mr. Sergius
Ikemu, argued that there were so many aspects in the industry that one can look
at and say it needed better handling. “But on a broader sense, there is the
nagging issue of how the sector is regulated.
“If we take the PIB as an aspect,
over the period of last administration, the issue of re-engineering the sector
was debated all through yet, there was no concrete progress. This if properly
handled would have been one less area that the administration of Buhari would
have to worry about. However, lack of leadership was the biggest issue in the
energy industry.
Oil and gas
However, the Principal Consultant,
LONADEK Nigeria Limited, a firm of oil and gas consultants, Dr. Ibilola Amao,
stated that the decay in the oil and gas industry for some time, can be
attributed to the frequent changes in the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, NNPC.
According to her, “There were quite
a lot of legitimate oil and gas activities stalled because the NNPC Board did
not meet as frequently as required (the NNPC Board must meet regularly and
submit report progress report – mandatorily).
“GMD’s were sacked and replaced in a
very haphazard manner and too many critical decisions were left to the whims
and caprices of Madam Minister.
“Also, a lot of fraudulent
activities and practices characterized Nigeria’s downstream activities,” she
said.
She also said that the subsidy regime
was flawed with irregularities .
And “was a bazaar of some sorts and
the coming government must extricate Nigeria from its numerous adverse
consequences, adding that “shady deals involved in the importation of products
and subsidy disbursements have still not been addressed and nothing has come
out of the reports by the committees set up after the subsidy uprising by the
masses.”
As regards crude oil lifting, Amao
said that the allocation of cargoes follows an opaque procedure known only to
the highest levels of government (and in some cases their proxies).
“This practice must stop and the
sale of crude should be made public (or by NNPC directly on the spot market) if
170 million Nigerians are to become true beneficiaries of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon
wealth,” she said.
Amao maintained that “the Petroleum
Minister was neither accountable to Nigerians nor the national assembly. Her
failure to relate properly with the lower and upper house and the delay in the
passage of the PIB led to a huge reduction in Foreign Direct Investment and
delayed projects that could have had a positive impact on the Nigerian economy.
“With the exception of the Nigerian
Content Development and Monitoring Board’s (NCDMB) strides that opened up
opportunities for Nigerian business owners, the Oil and Gas industry suffered a
lull in activities midstream and downstream activities because of the delayed
passage of the PIB.
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