The chairman, Nigerian
Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr Sam Amadi, has said that there is
the possibility the power sector privatization carried out under the outgoing
administration of President Goodluck Jonathan could be undone by the incoming
government of General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Amadi, who stated this during an
interview in his office in Abuja yesterday, in response to the question whether
such was possible, said: “Everything is possible; there’s no impossibility with
government to, through due process or through extra-legal actions, reverse any
policy or decision”.
According to the NERC chairman, a
government that assumes power has a responsibility for making policies, in
which regard, it can change existing policy, review existing policy or
vigorously pursue existing policy.
He further explained that every
government is at liberty to decide what should be its dominant economic
philosophy, just as he pointed out that whatever philosophy adopted will
definitely have a trickle-down effect on other policy areas, especially a
sector as significant as power.
“To undo privatisation could mean
using the existing framework to rewind; for example, there are clauses in the
agreements signed by the Distribution Companies (Discos) who bought the assets,
of things that could happen in which they can pull out if they are no longer
satisfied, or which government can pull out with cost.
“So from a legal point of view,
there’s due process for undoing. The other one is extra-legal, maybe, some kind
of nationalization; it’s still theoretically possible in today’s world for
government to nationalize privately owned assets”, Amadi explained.
However, such decisions, he
noted, may be followed by consequences some of which can be financial or legal,
with some possibly having serious fundamental impact on the economy and social well being.
Speaking further, the NERC boss
maintained that from his understanding of the two major political parties – All
Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party – their policies are in line
with the framework of the national electric power policy issued in 2,000 by the
PDP-led government, which is clearly premised on privatizing and securing the
financial viability of the sector as a way of improving power supply by
sustaining investments.
“The national electric power
policy is a sound policy but can be reviewed; that will mean there are certain
things we didn't factor. Year 2,000 to date is over a decade, so there are new
insights as to how things should work. We have seen how institutions work or
fail to work and this means that there’s nothing wrong in government reviewing
the reform process in terms of going back to the founding documents and doing
some forensic.
“Find out what policies have been
completed, what are we learning from the already undertaken process? How do we
make the process better and what should we not undertake? It’s not just about
undoing privatisation because privatisation in itself is not a problem”, he
said.
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