FG commences power sector recovery with World Bank $1bn credit

The Federal government has finalised arrangements to commence a special recovery plan in the power sector with a one billion dollars credit from the World Bank, Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Alex Okoh said on Thursday.

The recovery plan is part of its post privatization agenda to revive the sector following persistent poor performance.

The one billion dollars credit from the World Bank would serve as a counterpart funding to revive the power sector especially the Distribution and Transmission sectors, which have performed below expectations years after privatization.

“We now generate up to 5,000 to 7,000 megawatts but unfortunately the distribution companies (discos) cant dispense even half because the capacity is not there , they lack facilities,“ Okoh told journalists at a press briefing.
He said because government does not want this situation to persist, “we have decided to collaborate with the operators of the distribution and transmission companies to solve the challenges they are facing with a recovery plan that will provide a counter fund of one billion dollars we are getting from the world bank “.
He also disclosed that the power sector is among the 37% of the enterprises privatized that are not doing well due to fiscal problems among others, “we are not going to abandon them we are looking on how we can help them revive,” the DG said .
Reviewing the achievements of the privatization program since its inception, he said 7.8 billion dollars foreign direct investments have so far been attracted into country through 53 enterprises privatized and that government has realized more than 550 billion naira as proceeds from the program.
He added that 400 billion naira is the expected revenue to be generated from this year’s privatization programs which will be part of the revenue to fund 2018 budget.

 
Onuah Yvonne, Abuja