N156bn debt: GenCos seek Federal Government’s intervention to avert shut down of facilities
Consumer Rights Advancement Organisation (CRADO) has appealed to the Federal Government to stop electricity generation companies (GenCos) from shutting down their operations over N156 billion debts.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the GenCos, in newspaper advertisements on Aug. 8, threatened to shut down their plants over N156 billion debts owed by some government agencies.
Mr Adeolu Ogunbanjo, the President of CRADO, a non-governmental organisation, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.
He condemned the development and urged the government to urgently step in to save over 170 million Nigerians from total darkness.
Ogunbanjo appealed to both the legislature and the executive to assist these companies in ensuring the recovery of the debts so as not to cripple the economy.
He said that the threat of the GenCos should be taken seriously since it was capable of collapsing businesses in the country.
Ogunbanjo suggested that government should initiate settlement of the debts through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Electricity Stabilisation Fund.
He said that the non-availability of gas was the biggest challenge facing these GenCos, adding that if there was adequate gas supply to these companies, electricity generation would be increased from the current 2,673.4 mega watts.
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3 Comments
They should go ahead and shut down the system immediately and NEVER power them up again. Nigerians have since adjusted to life with generators and lanterns.
How do government agencies not budget for the debt the owe? why wasn’t this capture in their 2016 budget? when these MDA don’t pay their debt, these discos now want to collect that money from residential and business consumers.
“Consumer Rights Advancement Organisation” indeed! I heard GENCO Rights Advancement Organisation here. After selling the power sector at ‘give-away’ prices to friends and families of politicians; and after much of unnecessary, ‘padi-padi’ intervention funds granted to both DISCOs and GENCOs by the previous administration of GEJ, it is abhorrent for govt to even consider another round of criminal ‘bailout’. Truth is: individual companies would never be in the position to effectively manage public installations and institutions such as the power sector like the Nigerian people. Government has to re-nationalise the power sector and put it under the direct, democratic management of workers in the power sector, genuine electricity consumers and govt representatives (instead of only ministers who are in office to recoup campaign funds). No doubt that all the arguments of govt about ‘ineptitude’ under public ownership have been proven by events to be fallacious. What is different in the work-force under NEPA, under PHCN and those under the DISCOs and GENCOs? Truly there were mismanagement during the public ownership period, but they were largely caused by ‘long-throating’ and rapacious character of the Nigerian ministers, politicians and top government bureaucrats who oversaw, undemocratically, these MDAs then. Well, problem has changed name, because the same politicians bought the power sector, and we all expect a difference! Impossible. The logic of business is profit first: now Nigerians have to endure power failures as these elements in the power sector satiate their appetite for profits through whatever schemes; including contracting ‘town criers’ to demand on their behalf for ‘intervention fund”. #RE-NATIONALISEthePOWERsector
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