By Abdul Lawal, Abuja
Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) has kicked against the proposed privatisation of five the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) plants.
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) had proposed to privatise five out of the ten thermal power plants built by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC)under the National integrated Power Projects (NIPP)
NIPP is a scheme designed to increase Power infrastructure in Generation Transmission, Distribution and Gas basically to improve capacity and quality of power to Nigerians.
The project initiated in 2004 is jointly owned by the three tiers of government in Nigeria- Federal ,State and Local government.
The five power plants of Benin Generation Company Ltd., Calabar Generation Company Ltd., Geregu Generation Company Ltd., Olorunsogo Generation Company Ltd., and Omotosho Generation Company Ltd.are billed for privatisation as Federal Government plans to use the proceed to fund 2023 budget.
The outgoing Chairman of Nigerian Governor’s Forum ( NGF) and Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who commented on the proposal
Thursday, said the governors were against the plan as all stakeholders were not included in the scheme.
DailyNewscraft.ng report that the Vice President is the Chairman, Board of Directors , with Six Governors representing the six geo-political zones of the country as well as the Ministers of Justice and Attorney General of the country, Finance and Ecomomic Planning Power and Petroleum Resources.
Dr. Fayemi said “We examined the issues relating to the proposed privatisation of the power project and we took a decision that at this point in time, the NGF is opposed to the sale of any of the plants until appropriate steps have been taken that would take into consideration the interest of states that are also equity holders in those plants.”
“We’ll continue to do whatever we can to ensure the resources of Nigeria stay with the Nigerian people and are not filtered away in a manner we can’t explain.”
The NGF also advised the federal government against sanctioning the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), urging it to rather resolve the contentious issues in the interest of the students and Nigeria.
The NDPHC has total installed generation capacity of over 4000MW. With mega projects in Transmission, Distribution where over 25 000 CSP transformers were installed across major Distribution network in the country, several Distribution injection sub stations across all the 11 Distribution Companies across the country.