New owners to take over electricity firms Nov. 1

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) announced Thursday that the new owners would now finally take over operations of the privatised utilities on November 1, 2013. President Goodluck Jonathan had on September 30, 2013 formally handed over its shares in 14 of the 18 successor firms of the PHCN to new owners. And because labor payments and related issues had not been concluded, the actual handover of the utilities to the new owners was scheduled for a later date. The Deputy Director, Electric Power Department of BPE, Amaechi Aloke, told anxious investors that the physical handover had been approved. He was optimistic that all issues concerning labour would have been settled by the handover date. He spoke at a public hearing and workshop on the regulation of the electricity market post-privatisation in Abuja. According to him, the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) directed that the nation's electricity workers must be given a six-month lay-off grace, following which the new owners would be at liberty to disengage and recruit as they deem fit. The industry regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), made it clear at the occasion that though the new owners paid huge amounts for the facilities, it would not allow them to dictate to it, or to the government. 'In making rules, we need to listen to all stakeholders, operators, experts and those that will be impacted by the rules. We will not make rules without the input from those to be affected by the rules. We will write the rules; not the operators or disco roundtable but NERC will write the rules, the Chairman of NERC, Sam Amadi, said. 'We believe that the operators and consumers do not have irreconcilable interests. Our job is to converge their interests into a single commitment to provide to every Nigerian home and business access to adequate, reliable and safe electricity.' The Deputy General Manager, Market Competition and Rates at the commission, Abdulkadir Shetimma, presented the draft interim market rules expected to guide the electricity industry between November 1, 2013 when the electricity firms will be handed over to the investors, and February 28, 2014 when the Transitional Electricity Market (TEM) will commence in full