FG Banks On PPP For $10bn Power Sector Investment Needs
BY COBHAM NSA – The Federal Government is targeting the private sector to raise part of the 10 billion dollars investment required to provide regular electricity across Nigeria in the next five to 10 years period.
The plan is to explore the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to finance, build, and operate power projects across the country on a sustainable basis.
According to the Director General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Dr Jobson Oseodion Ewalefoh and the Minister of Power Chief Adebayo A. Adelabu, given the huge funding and technical requirement to advance Nigeria’s power sector, it has become imperative to utilise the PPP in co-financing and providing expertise towards ensuring optimal performance of power infrastructure.
Speaking when he paid a courtesy visit to the Minister on Tuesday in Abuja, the ICRC Director General said considering the importance of power to the nation’s economic development, optimizing performance of existing infrastructure as well as funding new ones is of crucial importance.
Dr Ewalefoh, who noted that challenges within the power sector were hydra-headed and went beyond funding alone, said robust inter-agency collaboration and partnership with the private sector would readily address the obvious limitations.
While responding to the Minister’s remarks, he said through its regulatory processes, the ICRC is in a losition to midwife private sector investment as part of the $10 billion required to provide regular electricity, attract more foreign direct investment to other sectors and ultimately grow the economy.
The Director General further said; “Revamping the power sector requires planning, it involves investments and it takes time. So, we need to collaborate to solve the issues in this sector.
“The investment required in power is very huge and government cannot fund it alone, so we have to leverage on the financing capacity of the private sector. That is why the ICRC was set up to regulate this leverage.
“The Commission is poised to regulating the processes of attracting investment to the power sector”.
The ICRC boss praised Minister’s vast knowledge of the power sector, adding his appointment by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu President was quite commendable.
He said in a bid to accelerate PPP investment as directed by Mr President, the ICRC had issued a 6-point policy direction which has ultimately streamlined the process of PPP service delivery.
For him, whereas the processes have been streamlined to accelerate project delivery and encourage investors to adopt PPP, the Commission would not relent or compromise on its stringent regulatory function so as to forestall contingent liabilities or unnecessary delays by companies that lack the requisite capacity.
Dr Ewalefoh said the ICRC would continue to insist on inserting conditions precedent to all PPP agreements such that any preferred bidder that defaults will have their agreement automatically nullified by reason of their default.
On his part, the Minister, Chief Adelabu lauded the Director General for initiating the proposal of advancing investment in power sector through PPPs.
He said; “For us to achieve 24 hours power supply across Nigeria in the next 5 to 10 years, there is a minimum funding requirement of about 10 billion dollars in the next 10 years. The government cannot afford that, when there are other critical sectors in need of funding.
“Can government do it alone? No! which is why we have to look for or marshal private sector fund while still retaining government interest and ownership. That is where ICRC comes in.”
“We need to do this in collaboration with the private sector and the best way is through concession”, the Minister said
