20 September, 2011, Sweetcrude, Abuja- The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has said global experience in the implementation of reforms in the power sector has shown that it could be productive and profitable.
Director-General of BPE, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, in a paper entitled, ‘Power sector: Global experience’, presented at the two-day Nigerian power sector reform workshop, organised by the BPE, said reforms could yield huge productivity gains, particularly through dynamic efficiency gains under competitive pressures. This assertion was also corroborated by Dr. Cezley Sampson, a lead consultant at CPCS
BPE’s Head, Public Communication, Chukwuma Nwokoh, in a statement, said they contended that experiences with reforms elsewhere have yielded several general lessons for developing countries, such as Nigeria.
“It shows that radical unbundling is feasible—that generation, transmission, and distribution can be separated from one another even in power sectors that did not adopt this structure from an early stage of development. Several countries have recently unbundled their power sectors. Examples are England and Wales, Argentina, Bolivia, Hungary, Peru, Poland, Ukraine, Kenya and India/Delhi,” Onagoruwa and Sampson explained.
They pointed out that private financing of power investments in a competitive market is feasible in a sound business environment. To them, the key is to ensure that private developers carry the risks that they can manage, and that government guarantees are limited as much as possible.
