- FG hastens MDAs to pay up legacy debts
James Emejo in Abuja
The acting Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Dr. Vincent Onome Akpotaire, wednesday urged owners of the successor companies of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to think outside the box and make long- term investments to improve their plants’ network and infrastructure despite the seeming unfavourable operating environment in the country.
Speaking in Ibadan, Oyo State, at the flag- off of the agency’s periodic post privatisation monitoring exercise at the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), he reminded Distribution Companies (Discos) that they won the bid of their respective companies based on the Aggregate Technical Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) which they had submitted.
He further enjoined the investors to approach local and international funding sources to improve on their operations such that when the environment stabilizes, they would not be caught napping since their investment is in perpetuity.
According to him, they could only achieve that if they consciously expand and improve their network operation “because if the network is not improved and metering not aggressively pursued you cannot reduce technical and collection losses.”
Akpotaire noted the impressive investments and progress the IBEDC has made especially with the embedded generation project in collaboration with British America Tobacco (BAT), and admonished that “it is still not enough because any investment you make is in perpetuity. You need to find answers to the liquidity challenge.’
He informed owners of the IBEDC that the Vice President and Chairman of National Council on Privatisation (NCP), Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, were working assiduously to ensure that the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) debts were paid as soon as possible and enjoined the power owners to work to improve power efficiency in view of the effort the government was making to get electric power to the people and to get them pay for it.
He said the general impression was that the Discos were not performing.
In a statement by the Head, Public Communications, BPE, Mr. Alex Okoh, the BPE acting director, however, commended the company for its effort at upgrading facilities and urged the management to make conscious effort to meet, if not exceed the agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
He tasked them on the need to have a team of professional staff to drive the new technology they had deployed in information technology and other areas.
The BPE monitoring team was received by the IBEDC Managing Director, Mr. John Donnachie, who briefed the team on the company’s operations, progress, challenges and prospects.
He later took the team to the company’s various facilities and the embedded plant at NAMPAK Properties which is being built for the company’s captive market for industrial clusters at Oba Otudeko Avenue in Ibadan.
