Create new act, don’t reverse power privatisation, Tinubu urged

The Agora Policy, a research-based organisation, has urged the incoming administration led by president-elect Ahmed Tinubu to create a new electricity act and ignore calls to reverse the 2013 power sector privatisation.

The organisation founded by Waziri Adio, a former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), stated this in a policy paper titled, ‘Addressing Nigeria’s Lingering Power Challenge.’

According to the World Bank, Nigeria has the largest energy access deficit in the world. 85 million Nigerians, representing 43% of the country’s population, don’t have access to grid electricity. It also estimates that the lack of reliable power costs the Nigerian economy over $26.2 billion (N10.1 trillion) which is equivalent to about 2% of Nigeria’s GDP.

The new government will take off on 29th May 2023 after its inauguration in less than a week.

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It said the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 (EPSRA) should be amended and that it is not certain that the current bills on electricity before the 9th National Assembly will be harmonised and passed by President Muhammadu Buhari this week.

It said: “In the event that the EPSRA repeal/amendment bill is either not passed by the 9th National Assembly, or that President Buhari declines assent to the bill, the incoming administration should fast-track the passage of a new electricity act by the 10th National Assembly.”

On privatisation reversal, the paper stated: “Reversing the privatisation of the power sector should not be contemplated under any circumstance. The privatisation process has built-in contract provisions to address the failures of any core investor under their performance agreements.

“What is needed is for the government to activate these contract provisions, provided the government has also met its own obligations too to core investors,” it urged the new government.