The 57th power dialogue was indeed an interesting and interactive session. It was aimed at taking a critical look at the current status of the NIPP, exploring the issues hindering assets’ sale, and proffer strategies to attract investment.
The Managing director, Niger Delta Power Holding company limited (NDPHC), Mr. Chiedu Ugbo said at the dialogue that NIPP was designed as a fast-track initiative to add significant power supply to the grid. He further mentioned the ten plants owned by NIPP. On exploring the issues surrounding the NIPP, he explained that several factors have hindered the smooth operation of the plants and they include; Transmission constraint, Gas supply constraint, liquidity challenges, and load rejection.
According to Eyo Ekpo, Chief Executive Officer, Excredite Consulting Limited; Nigeria is not on the right track with privatisation because the probability of the power sector being attractive to investors was over ten years ago before new technologies soared. He further emphasised that the reason for low investment in the sector is because the plants are open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) and are not considered environmentally friendly technologies.
He also stated that one of the tragedies that befell the power sector reform process was NIPP. This is because several billions of naira were spent on NIPP plants and the construction of these plants took too long a time, and now at the onset of it been completed, technology has grown past the use of such kinds of plant.
To conclude, several recommendations were put forward to provide assistance and solutions to NIPP’s challenges and they include the country’s need to be more strategic and contextualise the reforms to our own environment and also, given the country’s endowment with large power generation capacity, it has to look at its natural areas of advantage and restructure its power strategy.