Vanguard, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013—25
POWER: FG assures of sufficient manpower …As NAPTIN graduates 243 engineers BY CHRIS OCHAYI
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BUJA: The Federal Government has assured Nigerians of the availability of sufficient indigenous manpower for the 10 new National Integrated Power Plants, NIPPs, being commissioned across the country. The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, gave the assurance in Abuja, at the first graduation ceremony of trained power engineers from the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria, NAPTIN. He explained that the assurance stems from the success of government’s capacity development programme for the power sector. He said the graduation of the first set of 243 engineers by the Institute was a big milestone on the road to achieving efficient and reliable local content in the unfolding revolution in the new power sector. The minister said there was no fear of redundancy for the high caliber of engineers being produced under NAPTIN’s Graduate Skills Development Programme. He said there was a great need of them in the now privatised generation and distribution companies, the NIPPs, as well as at the Transmission Company of Nigeria, where some of the young engineers had already been engaged.
BY CHRIS OCHAYI
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VISIT: Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential
Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, and Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development Management Board, NCDMB, Mr. Ernest Nwapa, when Kuku visited the NCDMB headquarters in Yenogoa, Bayelsa State.
Nebo said the products of the Institute were the critical mass of skilled manpower needed to take Nigeria to her envisaged place among the 220 most developed nations by the Year 2020. In his address earlier, the Director General of NAPTIN, Mr. Reuben Okeke, affirmed that the graduate progamme was designed to act as a systematic interventionist
approach to the grand plan of meeting the nation’s manpower needs in the energy sector. He commended the Minister of Power for intervening to secure appropriate job placements for some of the graduates. He explained that following the launch of the programme in September 2012, over 1,530 applications were received nationwide with a total about 243 graduate trainees eventually
‘Maint enance culture'll ensure ‘Maintenance sust enance’ sustenance’ By CHRIS OCHAYI
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BUJA: The Federal Government has assured consumers of power that that electricity generation will improve over the next few months, as the new owners of the privatised successor companies will introduce maintenance culture that ensure steady power supply. The Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, who said this in his presentation to the Course 22 of the National Defence Academy, in Abuja. He added that the new owners will embark on the importation of spare parts to replace and refurbish the moribund components. In a paper entitled, “The Federal Government Privatisation Programme: The Journey So Far,” Dikki disclosed that the major work
Group cautions against consumer exploitation
of the Bureau was the reforms of the various sectors of the economy to create an enabling environment for private sector investments. He said the agency, instituted sound sector policies; liberalisation of the sectors by abrogating monopoly laws; and delineation of the roles of policy formulation from regulation and operations. Others are the establishment of appropriate legal and regulatory framework; mitigation of risks to encourage private sector investments and the setting up of independent regulatory agencies. He noted that the BPE championed the Telecommunications Sector Reforms that revolutionalised the country’s telecom sector with the enactment of the Telecom Act of 2003. According to him, this led to the licensing of several service
providers that have created many new jobs and an astronomical growth from a teledensity of 0.4%, representing 450,000 telephone lines in 2001, to 82%, representing 123 million telephone lines as at June 2013. Dikki argued that the BPE midwife the enactment of the Pension Reform Act of 2004 that led to the establishment of National Pension Commission, which entrenched a stable pension policy in Nigeria. Through the Commission, retirees are now certain to get paid on retirement which has so far created over N3 trillion long term investable funds for infrastructure development – if the restrictions of the law are relaxed. He explained that the establishment of the Debt Management Office (DMO) is one of the outcomes of the reform works of the Bureau to curb arbitrary borrowing by public enterprises and government
admitted and enrolled. The DG explained that while some were under their state government’s sponsorship, a good number also came on private or self sponsorship. The 243 NAPTIN trainees graduated at the event span across the power chain with 92 from generation, 79 from transmission and 72 from distribution.
agencies. He enumerated the primary benefits of the Ports Reforms by the BPE on the economy to include faster ship turn-around time; faster cargo turn-around time; and faster truck turnaround time. Others are use of larger ships; increased port utilisation efficiency; lower port operating costs and opportunities for inland distribution by rail. The secondary benefits according to him are increased competition; lower port charges; lower freight rates; increased private sector investments; labour force improvements and net financial transfers to the government. To sustain the gains of past reforms, Dikki listed seven critical Bills targeted for passage into Law, which have been approved by the National Council on Privatisation for presentation to the Federal Executive Council, FEC.
BUJA: Following the successful handover of power assets to their respective new owners, the Save Nigeria Group, SNG, has called on the Federal Government to monitor the activities of the private investors with a view to checking incessant hike in electricity tariff to rip off Nigerians. National Coordinator of SNG, Mr. Benedict Ezeagu, who made the call while addressing newsmen in Abuja, insisted that government and the new investors should stand by their promises to achieve the target of making electricity available and affordable to all Nigerians. Ezeagu who was assisted by his image officer, Mr. Francis Olabode, said, “We want to clearly remind the new investors in the power sector that what Nigerians expect from them now is to nip the problem of power in the bud, to ensure that the promised affordable power supply all over the country and rapid socio-economic transformation are immediately realised without further excuses. “Nigerians have been promised that the participation of the private sector would bring about higher generation capacities through the provision of more efficient and cost effective power stations and improvements in electric power distribution in the areas of billing, collection and transmission networks thus the expectation are very high considering the fact that power is the engine room of development as the driver of all other sectors in any country. “The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, and the Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE, should monitor the operations of these private investors and do everything necessary to allay Nigerians’ fears of incessant hike in electricity tariff following this transfer of ownership of power distribution to the private sector. “NERC as the regulator of the electric power sector must ensure that all the new stakeholders in the power sector play according to the rule and that the new investors in the power sector would not rip off Nigerians.