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Group seeks special court on power sector

By Adamu Abuh, Abuja
11 February 2020   |   4:04 am
Executive Director, Power for All, Ijeoma Malo, has canvassed for establishment of special court to oversee the power sector of the economy.

Deplores loss of 1,793 firms in four years due to outage
Executive Director, Power for All, Ijeoma Malo, has canvassed for establishment of special court to oversee the power sector of the economy.

Malo, who spoke as a discussant at a forum organised by the Idayat Hassan-led Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), in conjunction with the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOARS) in Abuja on corruption in the power sector, blamed non-enforcement of extant regulations for the problem in the sector.

She said that once the court is put in place, it would be easier to hold the distribution firms (DisCos) and other stakeholders in the power sector accountable for their misdeeds.

Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim, who recalled how the privatisation of the power sector was wrongly managed, said that the problem in the power sector is systemic and it behoves those entrusted with the governance of the country to identify pathways towards addressing the problems plaguing the sector.

Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the CDD in conjunction with SOARS consortium, which was presented by Dr. Palavi Roy, indicated that the number of medium-sized enterprises decreased significantly from 4,670 in 2013 to 1,793 in 2017, representing 61 per cent drop in SMEs within the period under review.

The report blamed corrupt practices for the problem militating against uninterrupted power supply in the country.

According to the report, a survey of sampled SMEs across the country indicated, among others, that the affected SMEs failed to remain in business in spite the fact that they had to be forced to use diesel procured in the black market at expensive rates.

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