Because the power industry can only effectively be managed by the private sector, according to vice-president Atiku Abubaker, because an expanding power supply industry is necessary for economic growth, and because the government cannot afford the N100 billion ($1 billion approx) required to re-engineer the system, government plans to privatise NEPA, the national electric power authority, are to go ahead. The announcement has been made as it became apparent that load shedding on account of low levels of power generation is likely to persist for some time. The country’s generation and distribution system has suffered widespread setbacks and a 2000 MW shortfall owing to failed generators, low rainfall leading to depleted reservoirs and outages due to maintenance work. Because of neglect going back three decades, huge investment is needed immediately to re-engineer the system. What money is available from government is, in view of the parlous state of the economy, needed more urgently elsewhere.
The government is blaming the failure of the public sector and says it now has no option but to privatise NEPA. Before privatisation, it is to be split into three parts, namely generation, distribution and transmission.
The 2000 MW shortfall on last years’ achievement of 4 163 MW has made nonsense of the president’s pledge at that time that power outages would end by December 31 2001. The reduction of available power to little over 2000 MW has been brought mainly by the loss of major plant at Egbin, in Lagos, and Shiroro. The collapse of units four and six at Egbin, with the loss of 660 MW, will not be made good for up to 20 weeks and in that time another unit will be taken off line for urgent maintenance work. Meanwhile at Shiroro hydro plant only one of the four units are on line, owing to the low level of the lake, a loss of 450 MW. Other units at the Kainji, Jebba and Afan plants are also off line for maintenance. The failure of the two steam turbines at the Lagos plant has reportedly caused some public unrest, since it is known that the government recently spent $7 million renovating them.
