This was disclosed yesterday by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola and the Acting Chairman, CEO of NERC, Dr. Anthony Akah, when they appeared before the Joint Senate Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity as well as Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy.
The Committees are chaired by Senators Suleiman Nazif and James
Manager. All the senators urged the federal government to put an end to
rhetorics and put in place serious action that would provide electricity
to Nigerians, adding that what Nigerians expected from the government
of change was the provision of basic services as electricity. Addressing
the lawmakers, Fashola noted that only the NERC had the powers to fix
tariffs in line with the law passed by the National Assembly.
He said as a minister, he didn’t do it and asked Nigerians to put
behind them the past and move the country forward by keying into the
agenda of the federal government. Also yesterday, the Senate and
organized Labour carpeted Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs and
generation companies, GENCOs, over what they termed exploitation of the
people and failure to provide services commensurate with the money
collected from Nigerians.
Speaking further, Fashola explained that the regulatory power of the
sector had also been placed on National Electricity Regulatory
Commission, NERC, by an Act of Parliament, hence his job was to line up
behind what NERC was doing. The minister said he was in support of the
hike in electricity tariff by the commission which came into effect
three months ago and generated public outcry from Nigerians.
He said: “The real actor here is NERC, NERC is the only body by the
law that you enacted that fixes tariff, not the minister, not the
ministry. ‘’ That is the independence that we created since the
electricity sector reform Act 2005. It was a landmark legislation, the
more I read that legislation, the more I salute the parliamentarians who
debated that legislation. “Of course, every legislation is often times
limited to the circumstance of those who made it. That is why there are
amendments from time to time but up to last night, I still referred to
that legislation preparing our rural electrification plan and the rural
electrification form and that legislation seems to have addressed many
things. ‘’Let me say again for the purpose of those who will benefit
from this public hearing that today, there is no PHCN anymore and we
must migrate because we have moved on from it.
Source:Leadership