The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has vowed to investigate the five-year licence extension for the country’s 11 Distribution Companies, DisCos.
Adelabu disclosed this during an interactive session with journalists on Wednesday.
DAILY POST reports that Nigeria’s electricity sector privatization agreement expired on 31st October this year after a 10 Moratorium plan commenced in November 2013.
The contract had allowed for an additional five years and another option for ten years of renewal after the government reviewed the performance of the DisCos.
But the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced last week during the maiden Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) conference that the companies got the 5-year renewal to assuage fears of investors losing their money as the sector needed long-term investment.
Reacting to the development, Adelabu stressed that the premium should be placed on performance rather than license.
“The vice chairman of NERC told me that before their tenure, the commission had extended the licences by another five years; the correctness of that, legally and contractually, we are trying to review it, and I have ordered an investigation into the extension of the licences if they were in order.
“The licence is less important than the performance bond we signed with the private sector operators. Respective of the tenure of the licence, it can be revoked at any time, so it is not very important whether the licence is extended for another decade or not; if you are not meeting the conditions in the performance bond, all I will do is to pay you one dollar, and you should walk away to get the licence back from you,” he said.
Recall that FG has condemned operators in the power sector for failing to perform 10 years after privatization.
