Open Letter to Minister Fashola
Permit me the privilege and opportunity to use this medium as usual to reach out to the Honourable Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), considering the bureaucracy and bureaucratic bottlenecks one has to go through trying to reach you.
Honourable Minister Sir, I’ve written many articles on the privatization exercise; vis-à-vis, its workability, implementation of all agreements reached with stakeholders and workers. In fact, in one of the responses to my write-up, a concerned Nigerian, responded by saying that I’ve enumerated some of the problems, I should talk of some possible solutions. Last month, during one of your visits to Lagos, you said: “Today, we have more power available to go to the grid over 6,000MW because generation and transmission have improved. The capacity is above what the DISCOs can carry. So, they have to play to catch up”. The gospel truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; is that there is no amount of ‘play’ the DISCOs can do to catch up with the entire system.
The DISCOs have no financial where-withal and the technical capacity to re-tension, reenforce, re-align, re-strengthen and re-conduct, replace broken poles, shattered 33/11kv Disc and pin insulators and fibre cross-arms across the over 4,000km 33kv distribution network across the country. As a stake holder, Engineer and an industry participant with over 20 years industry experience, I am of the opinion that the Federal Government under your ministry set up a Special Task Force, made up of seasoned experienced industry engineers/ technicians, especially those technical/operation officers that were forcefully disengaged by the DISCOs for reasons best known to them, to carry out a comprehensive sanitation exercise of the network.
To further buttress my point, presently, some of the DISCOs are consulting and engaging the disengaged members of staff, in areas such as: Training, Seminar and workshops for some of the newly employed DISCOs staff. Also, some of the distribution transformers in the network need to be replaced for maximum and optimal efficiency, and thereby reducing the eddy/ hysteresis current losses incurred in the network. Although, I was made to understand that the DISCOs have opposed some of the possible initiatives to evacuate the additional 2,000Mw of electricity in a letter dated September 27th, 2017 entitled: “Federal Government of Nigeria’s initiatives in the Electricity Sector and the impact on the Electricity Distribution Company Activities”. It was jointly signed by the DISCOs, which was addressed to the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC). I also learnt that a copy of the letter was sent to your office.
At this juncture, let us remind the DISCOs that they don’t own the electricity industry 100%. They should note and bear in mind that; governments at all level is 40% shareholder of the DISCOs, including, serving and the forcefully disengaged workers. Therefore, it has become imperative, if not necessary for government to intervene in the interest of the shareholders, stakeholders, the DISCOs and the consumers alike.
I am also against the channeling investment into distribution assets through the DISCOs. The DISCOs are not good managers of funds. After all, they mismanaged the funds they inherited from the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). This is a wellknown fact, you can further carry out an independent investigation on this issue if you so wish. The proposed task force should be mandated to also carry out a comprehensive fact finding on the management and supervision of the distribution network by the DISCOs. It may interest you to note that some of the DISCOs, after disengaging the patriotic, hardworking trained staff of the company, replaced them with non-professionals, who have no science or engineering background. For instance; an accountant/auditor is made a Service Centre Manager, in charge of 11KV distribution network. The government has not been able to effectively and efficiently monitor the activities of the DISCOs, especially in the areas of billing and provision of meters. In fact, in the area of public relations and communications, it is nothing to write home about. Feeders trip day in day out, they carry out maintenance randomly without informing consumers as obtained in the former PHCN.
I am also of the opinion that the so-called bailout funds to DISCOs for meter procurement, if any, should be channeled immediately to bailout the entire 33/11KV distribution network, because without distribution, the light cannot get to meter point. The DISCOs, who also double as investors should source for money elsewhere and provide meters for the consumers, period! After all, they were aware of the problems before they came on board, isn’t it?
Finally, I shall not hesitate to always use this very important medium to advice you sincerely on the way forward, because constant electricity is the shortest way to poverty reduction.
Lest I forget, I want you to look into the rate that DISCOs disengage members of staff randomly, over 20,000 has been sacked. This is one sack too many! Meanwhile, those that were disengaged have not been settled.
Ladan (Snr), wrote this piece from Jos.