Analysts have said that Nigeria’s power sector has been one of the weak links in the infrastructure chain of the Nigerian economy, and for it to deliver the expected results, it must undergo fundamental restructuring.
Such changes must range from decentralizing the current national grid to ensuring cost-effective pricing of power output and diversification of the power mix. The analysts added that this must be one of the priority items for Nigeria’s next president.
Nigeria has undertaken several power sector reforms, the most ambitious and far-reaching one being the 2013 unbundling of the former monopoly, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, and the privatization of spurn-off units.
That move, aimed at boosting power generation and distribution in Africa’s biggest economy, has not produced the expected result, which has led to calls for a reversal or cancellation of the privatization.
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The starting point of the restructuring is the geographic distribution of the power distribution companies, they also said.
“We need to review the current structure of the power sector,” Omowumi O. Iledare, a professor of Energy Economics and Ghana National Petroleum professorial chair in Oil and Gas Economics at the University of Cape Coast’s Institute for Oil and Gas Studies said.
“The solution to the power sector is decentralization and regionalization of the market. This ‘unitary’ system of governance is killing the competitive spirit of Nigerians,” he told Daily Trust on Sunday in an interview.
Read more:https://dailytrust.com/power-crisis-how-nigeria-can-get-it-right-analysts/
