An expert in energy matters, Mr. Thomas Kraneis, said that owners of the privatised power utilities do not have money to pay their bills after the acquisition.
Kraneis, a German and Head, Association of German Consulting Engineers, spoke in an interview with the Daily Trust at venue of the recent investiture of the President, Nigerian Society of Engineers, (NSE), Mr Otis Anyaeji.
He said: The privatisation was done in a good mood but the new owners were not paying their bills. They got the power plants or the equipment but they didn’t have the money to pay the bills and this is the biggest problem.”
Saying that not all the plants were affected by this, Kraneis added that the problem posed the biggest threat to service delivery for the new owners. He said government should ensure that gas reached gas turbines, while the vast coal deposits should be utilised.
“You have coal in your country, which was never used. Around Gombe, you have a lot of coal, but this was never used. You have sunshine in the North very much. In Germany, we have only one-third of the sunshine as you have here in Nigeria. You can produce electricity less than 10 US cents per kilowatt/hour to Nigerians.”
The engineer said that the poor state of electricity supply was due to lack of planning. He said: “About 25 years ago, you had about 129 million people. But now, you have more than 180m and you still have the same installed capacity. That automatically means the electricity provided for individuals is dropping, not increasing.”
Describing many power projects as “unfinished NEPA projects”, Kraneis said: “There were about seven or eight power plants. And when the money was running out, they were sold to the market, even when they were not completed. This was not the best solution for these plants. They should be completed now.”
