There is perhaps no government programme that has in recent times excited the Nigerian people and the international community as the Road Map for Power Sector Reform which President Goodluck Jonathan unveiled in Lagos on August 26. This is understandable.
Everybody agrees that one significant missing link in Nigeria’s attempt at industrialisation and economic developement is epileptic public power supply in the country. Lack of stable electricity has negatively impacted on Nigeria’s competitiveness and has led to closure of companies and factories resulting in loss of jobs. This has equally aggravated the country’s unemployment situation and increased social problems like crimes. In fact, to quantify what Nigeria has lost by not having a stable electricity is to look at the giant strides that have been made in the telecommunications sector in less than 10 years since that sector witnessed a revolution with the auction of the digital mobile licences and the liberalisation of the sector.
Therefore, the need for stable light cannot be over emphaised. The road map unveiled by Jonathan details realistically how Nigeria’s paralysing electricity challenge will be resolved in no more than five years through, among other measures, increased private sector involvement in power generation and distribution. The right steps have been taken as regards fuel to power on a long term basis, a long leap from the days when power stations were built without a thought for the fuel to power them.
We believe that the government should be commended for insisting on doing the right thing, however unpalatable it may be to a tiny band of vested and entrenched interests. The embarrassing performance of the state-owned Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), a key factor for the country’s socio-economic performance over the decades, is rightly ascribed to greed and graft and deliberate sabotage.
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Against this backdrop, we are, like most Nigerians, perturbed by reports that some individuals in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and even The Presidency have awarded an emergency contract to a firm for $8.4 million to construct a 1.2-kilometre gas pipeline to the Alaoji Power Plant in Abia State. The 1,074 megwatt Alaoji plant, expected to come on stream in the first quarter of next year, is the biggest of such plants in the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP). The contract, which experts have called unnecessary and undesirable, is reportedly tagged “emergency” so as to circumvent the requirement that every contract up to N1 billion go through the Bureau of Public Procurement(BPP) for vetting. The BPP chief executive, Emeka Eze, has already stated his organisation is unaware of the award.
Why was only one company with no record in building gas pipelines invited to bid for the contract? The closest record the favoured firm has in this area is the sole contract it received three years ago to build a crude oil pipeline, which it is still grappling with. Gas pipelines require greater care because a minor fault in the construction could wipe out whole communities.
It is extremely difficult to understand how the new high pressure 18-inch gas supply pipeline can come off the old or existing low pressure 12-inch pipeline built in the 1960s for manufacturing firms in Aba. Power plants like Alaoji require high pressure gas pipelines.
Disturbing questions are also being raised about the contract sum. It is reported that the Nigerian Gas Company, an NNPC subsidiary, had contracted the full project for the engineering design, supply of line pipes and metering station, construction and commissioning to another contractor earlier. The onus is on the government to halt the unnecessary and wasteful emergency contract and bring to book all those officials involved in the scam which is threatening the take-off of the critical Alaoji power station.
