Government is responsible for poor power supply

Last week the minister of power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, following the template of the administration to deny responsibility for all the country’s ills, attempted to lay the blame of the abysmal electricity supply at the feet of the generating and distribution companies while absolving the government of any blame. Speaking at the Nextier Power Dialogue last week Wednesday in Abuja, the minister told his listeners that if they don’t have electricity, it is not the problem of the federal government.

“There are problems without a doubt and we must deal with them. But let me remind you, all of the assets that the ministry of power used to control for power have been sold by the last administration before I came. And so if you don’t have power, it is not the government’s problem. Let us be honest,” Fashola shocked his audience.

“The people who are operating the power sector, generation and distribution are now privately owned companies. I am here because I am concerned. If your telephone is not working, it is not the minister of communication that you go to. Let us be very clear. Logically therefore, people should take their complaints of lack of power to the Gencos and Discos and not him, the ministry or the government.

“So for those of you who want to weaponise electricity, face the businessmen who have taken it up…My role is regulatory, oversight and policy…So the people you should be talking to about transformers is not me. The ministry doesn’t supply transformers anymore,” he concluded.

Fair enough, the sector has been privatised and the Gencos and Discos especially have been underperforming, but a huge part of the blame lies with the government. Despite the privatisation of the sector, the government has refused to let go, bugging the sector down with over-regulation and tariff caps that discourage investments and continues to keep Nigerians in darkness. The same government that now wants us to believe it is not responsible for power outages is still the same government that has put an arbitrary cap on tariffs, making power generation and distribution much more expensive than what is being charged. The arbitrary tariff cap and excessive regulation have prevented gas companies from making the necessary investments needed to end the gas shortages.

There is nowhere in the world where this model works except under a subsidy regime. No banker or investor will agree to fund any investment in such an over-regulated sector with no chance of getting back one’s investment not to talk of returns. So, even though the Gencos and Discos have been privatized, it is also true that the government is still responsible for the abysmal electricity generation and distribution in the country.

Besides, the minister knew that the sector had been privatized when, in 2014, as a popular governor of Lagos state, he went about town calling the previous government ‘incompetent’ for failure to provide power that, according to him, ‘is not rocket science’, on the eve of the 2015 elections. In fact, we believe he owes his current position to that successful vilification of the previous administration and his boast that the nation’s power sector could be fixed within a short time. How can it be then that the same minister will now do an about turn, absolving government of all responsibilities in the sector? Is that not the type of hypocrisy that damages reputations and end political carriers in saner climes?

What is more, the minister’s party did promise in its manifesto to increase Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity to 10, 000 megawatts by 2019? How did they expect to fulfill that promise now that the minister has denied that the government has any role to play in power generation and distribution?

This behaviour and shameful denial of responsibility by the minister is in following a trend in this administration where, haven failed to deliver on promises, it begins to deny the promise made, deny responsibility or shift the blame for its inability to fulfil the promises. This is unfortunate and does not tell well on the reputation of the government and its personnel. We hope the government and the party will issue a rebuttal to this gaffe by the minister.