My many headaches as minister (II) – Fashola — 8th July 2018

 

My many headaches as minister (II) – Fashola

— 8th July 2018

[Continued from last week]

 

But your critics still point at your earlier comment that any serious government should be able to fix power in six months?

I did not say so. I challenge anybody who said I said so to bring the tape. I have the tape, I remember what I said, and I said it in Lekki. I went to commission the 6th Independent Power Plant that was delivered under my tenure as governor and we used it for Lekki Water Works, streetlighting and water treatment plant. The residents of Lekki then asked me why they didn’t have electricity in their homes and I said it was under a different franchise; that if I have the authority to connect them, I will connect them in six months. That’s not the same thing as saying I will solve Nigeria’s power problem in six months. I don’t make irresponsible statements. I have the tape of what I said. I challenge all those who said I said I will solve Nigeria’s power problems in six months to produce the tape where I said it. No one can produce that tape, because I didn’t say so. It is fake news.

The country is deficient of power need, what is the government doing about coal?

Let me quickly answer you. Government has essentially left power business and you know that. GENCOs have been sold. Distribution has been sold. We are only taking responsibility because we feel that we have an enabling role to play to the private company to help them deliver on what they have been enable to do. Power is essentially a business now. So, let us first understand that. What government has done is we will keep the transmission lines; that is why you can see our transmission project. If you produce the power, we would transport it because it is very expensive and government decides to maintain that. So ordinarily, government shouldn’t be involved. Government is still strategically supporting. There are three of the 10 NIPPs to be completed; there is an old power plant (the Afam Power Plant) that was damaged; we are trying to fix all of them, because Afam had an installed capacity of close to 900MW. It wasn’t producing One MW when Buhari came. It is now producing 170MW on Afam 4 and we are going to add 240MW more, because it hasn’t been sold. We are also trying to complete the inherited power projects in Kaduna, Zungeru, Kashimbilla, Katsina and a couple of others. Now, there are people who are interested in doing coal power and the nearest I can see is another two years because there is one serious developer who already has a power purchase agreement, a coal mining license and now he needs to go and contract the electrical site of the plant, because you also need cooling, closeness to water, proximity of the coal and his own coal site is about 40km from where he wants to put the power plant. That is within the acceptable benchmark. The major coal power plant that used to run – the Oji River Power Plant – was cracked and shut down and vandalized before we came. We are still trying to see if we can interest anybody to come and take it up. The viability is dependent on whether or not they can still operate the mines. Some of the preliminary reports coming from there are that the mines are flooded. But we want to see some coal because it is part of our energy mix and our coal is good, so we are not eliminating coal. We want to see gas, we want to see hydro; we want to see solar and other sources of power.

You were reported to have opposed the House of Representatives, which recommended that estimated billing should be criminalized, why?

 

Anybody who reported me as having opposed the National Assembly is being intellectually dishonest, really and truly. My role at public hearing when the parliament is making a law is to advise them and that was the role I played, and I made it clear. I also have the tape of everything I said. I always record everything I say, so that we cannot have an argument about it. That’s why there is a camera here, so if you misreport me, I bring out my tape. To be serious, I can’t take control of an editor’s slant for the headlines, but in doing that, we all still owe the responsibility to tell the truth. During that public hearing, I made it very clear, first, that nobody can stop parliament from passing any law they want to pass. I made that clear. Secondly, I made it clear that my role was to provide information to parliament. If parliament wants to pass a bill to criminalize estimated billing, I thought it was important for parliament to understand how many meters the people you want to criminalize can produce; because if you ask me to do what is impossible, you are only punishing me for no fault of mine, and I thought that they have all that information, so we provided them the information about the capacity of the meter providers in Nigeria. We provided them with the information about the desire of government to optimize the benefit of meter manufacturing locally instead of importing. We provided them with capacity of the people that our training institute has trained to install meters. We provided them with information of the different types of meters that are available and how long it takes to install one meter. So, it was then left for them to decide with the information they now have on what to do. It was not our intention to stop them from passing a law on estimated billing. We want estimated billing to stop; I must be very clear about that. We have put in place programmes using private sector. We saw a 13-year old meter dispute from the last administration. We resolved it; took it out of court. That’s credit to the Buhari government and we placed all these before the parliament to say, we are concerned on the executive side too, but this is what we have done. Whatever law you are going to pass must complement what we have done and move it forward. The ball is in your court. That is why you are elected, to pass laws.

 

When are we likely to see the entire country being metered?

Increase metering and aggressive metering will start. You see, when government makes policy, it first takes time for policy to be understood by those for whom it is made and then it takes time for policy to be implemented. We have made a policy of meter asset provider which opens up meter supply as a private business, away from the distributors; so it is like when these telcoms first came, they used to sell telephones with the SIM cards, but over time, you see that they have focused on their core business which is the SIM cards and the lines. They have left the telephone business to other businessmen. That’s where we want to go with meters. The regulations were passed I think in March or April this year; so people have started taking positions. I just got a report last week that some of the DISCOs have already ordered their meters. We have N37 billion in the bank waiting to help fund the meter asset providers. So, it is just for process, because you will come back and ask us to come and account for how that N37billion was expended. We need to create a paper trail that will help you see who got what, so you won’t say it was Fashola who sold this to his wife. I want to know so many arguments.

Do you think that despite killings and other security concerns in the country the APC government still deserves to be re-elected next year?

I think this government has started a truly reformative work. The results and benefits lie ahead in the agric sector, in the justice sector, in the recovery sector, in terms of infrastructure delivery and commitments. And it has shown modest, but defining success that needs to be sustained. And I think that Nigerians are in a particularly important crossroads in terms of making a choice. They voted previously for one party, now they have voted for a new party and they want things to happen quickly. They don’t want to go back to where they came from; I don’t think so. Those are the things that inform the choice. This is one election where Nigerians are going to be where the British have been; where the Americans have been; where the Germans have been; because they have now seen the difference between two sides. One has had 16 years at a time when there was enough money and nothing happened. This one has had three years at a time when there is less money, but rail is being built; roads are being built; power is being increased. Yes, there are challenges in some places but there are more reasons to see hope than yesterday. And I think Nigerians will think rationally and sustain what they have. You see millions of new farmers; agriculture is striving. After ‘Green Revolution, Operation Feed the Nation’ and many policy somersaults, Nigerians will look at that. Mining is striving again and road transportation is back.