Bulk trader engages firm to review electricity marketing roles
The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET) Plc has engaged a consulting firm, Deloitte Nigeria, to review its organizational operations to factor realities in the privatized power sector.
Managing Director of NBET, Mr Rumundaka Wonodi who disclosed this yesterday while receiving a delegation from Deloitte Nigeria yesterday at its office in Abuja said, “The industry (power) is opening up, and capacity building is important, working with firms to better understand our business is important.”
Although Wonodi said there is an approved structure in place when the Bulk The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Coleman Technical Industry Limited, Mr. George Onafowokan has expressed dissatisfaction over the federal government’s attitude towards local wires and cables manufacturers.
Onafowokan, while speaking with Daily Trust in Lagos, said local wires and cables manufacturers are not patronized by government.
According to him, “Patronage for local jobs, especially from government, is poor; there is no zeal by local manufacturers of cables to look for government Trader was established, he maintained that the realities of ensuring a consistent market process between the privatized Generation companies (Gencos) and the Distribution companies (Discos) calls for the review to take in clear targets and organizational roles.
NBET incorporated in 2010 buys power through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Gencos and resells to Discos through the vesting contracts. It is positioned as a credit-worthy agency with over $800million capitalization fund to stabilize electricity transactions.
“Deloitte is helping NBET in reviewing our organogram to better position the company to deliver its mandate and patronage because you cannot give any guaranty of payment.”
He said Coleman has managed to grow its business to be the largest wires and cables company in the West African coast with quality, standard and timely deliverable of cables and wires.
“I have been to a factory outside this country that had a job guaranteed for three months. It was fully booked doing government jobs because government was expanding. It is sad when you see importation of cables done at zero duty to support our power projects, while local cable companies in the country are ignored.”
Onafowokan noted
that meet with realities in the present electricity market. “Unlike most companies in the electricity sector, we do not hold physical assets but people, to utilize that human assets, the organogram becomes critical,” he said.
On the selection of Deloitte, NBET said it opened a bid session of which the firm emerged for the project among other bidders including KPMG and PWC. Wonodi who expects a significant impact of the reviewed structure said, “Once we have this structure, we can now efficiently evaluate and appraise performance within one to two years.
“There is some sort of internal measurement system to evaluate the strategy and almost every Nigerian know that made-in-Nigeria cables are better than the imported ones as the standard and quality of local cables are high.
The wires and cables manufacturing boss said the vision of the company is to make Coleman a ‘one-stopshop’ for a variety of wires and cables in West Africa.
Speaking on the repercussion of this on the Nigeria economy, he said unemployment would persist if government attitudes towards local production did not change.
“If government can patronize local production, it will create more jobs for citizens and it will be easier for us to do our periodically as the Board deems, they may decide if they should get external firm to assess the roles being played in the organization,” he explained.
Leader of the delegation and Managing Director, Deloitte Africa, Mr. Thiru Pillay said the audit and financial advisory firm which has presence in 15 African countries has over 6,500 staff. He noted that the key to organizational success lies on the need to have good strategies and also execute them well saying, “A good plan poorly executed is the same as a bad plan.”
He commended NBET for the review saying successful firms are those who review their operations to absorb realities in their sectors. business. We’ve done some oil & gas projects for the private sector who are driving our business. But the government is not. The government should be able to drive the cable industry. Today, Nigeria with huge population, should have nothing less than 40 cable companies if government is doing it right,” he said.
The Executive Director of the company, Mr Olusegun Onafowokan, disclosed that the company would commission a new plant in the northern part of the country before the end of the first quarter of 2016. It already has plants at Arepo1, Arepo 2, Sagamu 1 and 2 in Ogun State. As Nigeria joins the world to mark the World Energy Day today, the Nigerian Association of Energy Economics (NAEE) has advised the present administration to increase efforts to unlock the numerous potentials for the development of solar, hydro and wind energy.
The association made the call yesterday at a press briefing in Abuja as part of activities to mark the day. This year’s celebration is centred on the theme “Energy Access”.
The NAEE noted that great opportunities exist in renewable energy in off-grid area, new biofuel opportunities, energy storage devices, distribution systems and new transport models.
The president of the association, Professor Wumi Iledare lamented that a large proportion of Nigerians still don’t have access to modern energy, while availability and quality remain major concerns for those with access.
Prof Iledare in his speech, which was read by the immediate past president of the NAEE, Prof Adeola Adenikinju said serious energy poverty continues despite the huge investments in the energy industry and the country’s vast and varied resources.
He identified endemic and system corruption, poor maintenance, inadequate gas supply, transmission infrastructure, and inconsistent government policy as some of the reasons for the poor state of electricity in Nigeria.
“Until we are able to resolve the huge electricity deficit of the country, huge potentials of the economy would remain untapped and unavailable to current and future generations,” he stressed.
As part of solutions to the energy problem, the NAEE called on the present government to adopt the policy frameworks developed by the Energy Commission of Nigeria and provide the legislative backing for them.
The NAEE, through the World Energy Day, is providing a forum for scholars, policy makers and industry practitioners to highlight and discuss policy options to address energy challenges. It has outlined a number of activities today, including parade and speeches by relevant energy organisations.