PROFESSOR Barth Nnaji, is the Presidential Adviser on Power and also, the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power, (PTFP) saddled with the responsibility of driving the government power reform process which has the ultimate aim out transferring the power sector, represented by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN to private sector.

In a chat with Financial Vanguard he speaks on issues of saboteurs, labour and tariff and others Excerpt

What is the reform all about and does it involves loss of Job?

People are not losing their jobs in this process. It is not about loss of jobs, but rather we expect that anybody who is competent would be there and earn more money in the final analysis.

So, what is it that we are trying to achieve? We want to grow from, something like when Nigeria had over 400,000 lines or subscribers for telecommunication.

Barth Nnaji

With that, you had to bribe to get a line, you had to queue sometimes for months and even for years. When you get it, the line is often not clear, you not are able to make call very easily and you pay a lot more. And the number of jobs in the sector happens to have been limited.

That was what we had. Now we are talking of about 70 million subscribers and phone in the hands of everybody in the villages,  everywhere. You now have a situation that you do not have to queue up to get your telephone and if your credit runs out, you can replace it. We want to do same thing in power.

We want to have a system when you come home and turn on the light, the light would come up. We want to be able to walk the street because power would be there. If you are running a firm or a company, we want a situation that power would be there cheaply to support your production and these are what the power reform is all about.

So it is not about getting rid of the people who are working there because you would have to ask yourself, where would the workers to work in those companies that would emerge come from? The workers of course would be people who have experience and are already working in the power sector.

They are the ones who would come. So overall, we want to achieve transformation in the power sector and those working there would be part of the materials to be used to achieve that. We would have upgrading of their skills and many of them would earn a lot more. When all these are achieved, the workers in that sector can then go back to the old pride that they used to have years back. I want to tell you that the financial sector is very much geared towards this process.

The bankers’ committee which comprises of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) all the Chief Executives of banks have their primary agenda to work on and that is power, infrastructure and agriculture. Their belief is that with these sectors working, the Nigerian economy will be transformed.

When do you think this whole process would be completed most Nigerians feel reform process is taking too long?
We think that some aspects of the process would be a continuum, but the transaction process would be completed by the middle of next year if things go well. By the transaction process, we mean the bringing in of core investors into the generation and distribution.

Let me also say that when we talk of core investors, people should not think that these assets would be sold out rightly. They are not going to sold out rightly. The Federal Government would still own shares in them and we would simply bring core investors who would invest and take control of operating the assets.

How is the PTFP going to handle the frustrations from those you said are sabotaging your efforts?

Well, the saboteurs are of different categories and we certainly don’t include the workers as part of the saboteurs. They are not part of the classification, but we rather think that those who are benefitting from contracts and contracts awarded are those we can really characterise as saboteurs and we really want them to know that they may be sabotaging the efforts of Nigerians to get electricity. So, how do we handle them?

This reform initiative is intended to address all that and as long as the government is moving forward in it, we would definitely get to a logical point of no return. With the power reform, ones people begin to get reliable electricity and at affordable price, you would see that we would have reached a point of no return.

You said the workers are not among those derailing the process, so why are there challenges in the negotiation process?

If you look at it, we do not believe that all levels of workers have the same reluctance. The junior staff union leadership and not necessarily the junior staff are the ones we are talking about. We are not talking about the workers themselves, but the union leaders who happen not to be working in PHCN. So as a result of that, it becomes very difficult to get them to appreciate the interest of the workers themselves.

Their objective is a different objective, perhaps, because they are compensated according to the number of workers and a certain structure. Certainly, if anybody looks at the power reform plans, it is intended really for the workers to be the first beneficiaries of the reform. The point I am trying to make is that those who have interest in the current process would not want the progress of the whole process.

This government has done everything that needs to be done to show that it is very serious and committed to PHCN workers’ interest. Perhaps,  the seriousness of government to take the issues of workers seriously may  also be the same reason why the leadership of the junior workers’ union seemed to more determine not to want progress to happen. As leaders of the union who happen not to be employees’ of the workforce. When we talk about privatisation, you would have change of management, from government to private sector.

Because of that, the owners would want to discharge their liabilities and that is why we want to negotiate with the workers. So, the new core investors and the owners of the company would now have a new agreement with the workers.

So it is actually a change of ownership issue than removal of workers. It is possibly that a worker who is paid so much money may also decide not to work again. But the advantage of what is going on is that they have a chance to be bought out with pensions running in many cases into millions of naira and after that they can then decide to sign a new contract with the new company.

It is just normal, that is how it is done everywhere. We have always said it that nobody is going to sack anybody because power is not something that you would shut down and maybe few years after, you come and start it again, it is a continuum. So people must be there working, delivering supply. But they have refused to come to the table to negotiate and so, at some point, government would have no choice but to present them with the way forward.

So what are the other mandates of your Task force?

The job of the Task force is to drive this reform forward and to monitor the performance of various government projects in the sector, be it government project or the National Independent Power Project (NIPP). The task force does not award any contract to anybody. We identify those who are awarding contracts and those who are benefitting from contract awarded as some of the major problems of the reform because they would find all kinds of reasons and explanations as to why the process is not good.

If it weren’t that the President is determined to progress this, knowing fully well that is the only way to get Nigerians light as soon as possible, we would have died because these people would have been successful and they would throw all manner of roadblock everywhere.

So,  they are number one people who benefitting because we are in darkness, we have even gotten all the details about that.

Do you also subscribe to the allusion that generator importers and diesel distributors should also be factored into the reform process?

We encourage generator suppliers to get into business that would be more sustaining and will help Nigerians to get electricity, rather than be in the business of supplying these generators which end up not being to the benefit of Nigerians.

The fact that you have generator in your house doesn’t help your economic situation and same thing to diesel suppliers. So,  we would appreciate if they can come together and purchase some of these power plants, build new ones and for diesel suppliers to maybe get into gas production and transportation. These are very great businesses that can provide them with income. We like  them to get into any of the businesses that supports the sector.

One of the fears of Nigerians is that as soon as you place power in the hands of private sector, the tariff would just shoot up, thereby making it expensive for an average Nigerian to have power. What is your view on that?

That is totally unfounded and I can confirm that to you. You see there are two classes of people who would not suffer a rude shock in the case of tariff increase. That is the urban poor and rural dwellers. Those are the people we want to protect because these are the people who find it difficult to pay high tariff. But people who can afford should pay. They should be able to pay because that is how it is done anywhere in the world.

Nigeria should not be in the business of producing electricity or having people to invest in the business of production of electricity and loose money. People won’t come here to invest and we won’t have electricity. Therefore, we should make and create an effective system whereby if you invest in the power production, you should be able to get back your money over time.

That is the system. But those who cannot afford will not suffer any kind of tariff increase. We must understand that those who use generator, kerosene, pay far more today, even those who use candle also pay more. But people don’t know all that.