Privatisation cuts down power ministry staff by 14,000

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said that privatisation of the power sector in 2013 cut the staff strength of the power section of the ministry from 15,000 to less than 1,000.

Fashola, who said this when he inaugurated the Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) at the ministry in Abuja recently said, “Since privatization took place, one of the things that have happened is that the size of the Ministry of Power shrank significantly.

“I think our staff strength before I came was in the region of 15,000 and all of that is now less than a thousand people because most of the staff, some retired as a consequence of the privatization and transfer of ownership to the GenCos and the DisCos,” he explained.

He said the ministry has been reduced to formulating power sector policies and did not operate the Generation Companies (GenCos) or the Distribution Companies (DisCos).

Fashola however explained that the ministry only supervised Yola DisCo, where the privatization became problematic and a force majeure was declared.

“The truth is that we (ministry) don’t buy meters and we don’t supply meters. Really and truly our role now is just to make policies - about quality of energy, type of energy; whether it is hydro, thermal, and solar or wind - and to make sure that if there are problems we go and solve them,” Fashola noted.