By Clara          Nwachukwu
LAGOS — The Federal Government has issued an open invitation to local and international business community through a series of global investors’ forum, with a view to attracting credible investors into Nigeria’s ailing power sector.

The government also gave the assurance of adequate returns on investors, while highlighting the numerous opportunities for big business in the sector.

Minister of State for Power, Mr. Nuhu Wya, gave the assurance while declaring open a two-day interactive session with prospective investors in Lagos, yesterday, being the first in the series of the Global Power Sector Investment Forum.

Noting that government alone cannot afford to make all the capital investments required in the sector to satisfy the ever-increasing energy needs of Nigerians, the minister said several government interventions in the past did not yield the desired result of ensuring power availability and reliability.

Accordingly, he said: “We have invited both local and international investors to this forum to showcase the numerous opportunities available in Nigeria’s power sector, and to share with you the precise details of our privatisation plans and strategies for the divestiture of the Power Holding Company, PHCN successor companies, and other assets.”

The minister said current power assets in Nigeria could only deliver about 4,000 megawatts, MW, adding: “The Vision 20:2020 envisages a market for 40,000 MW in 10 years’ time, by 2020. This growth, which is quite plausible, has to be driven by greenfield private sector investments. Our mission in this forum is to have a better understanding of your concerns so that we can build a power supply industry that works for all, and grows fast enough to cope with demand.”

Also speaking, the Director General, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, highlighting the benefits of the global forum, said, “This forum creates an opportunity for the Bureau to speak directly to the investing public, update them on recent developments and bring clarity to the transaction and its processes. It will provide a platform for potential bidders who have some concerns in investing in the Nigerian power sector to have the opportunity of having those concerns addressed by the relevant government agencies and the transaction managers.”

As a result, the BPE boss argued that the agenda for the two-day forum was designed to cover all critical issues in the electric power sector such as  market design, tariff and regulation, fuel source, generation and transmission, risk mitigation strategies and a host of others.

She further explained to participants at the forum that the companies on offer are the 11 distribution companies; four thermal stations; and two hydro stations.  “The transmission company will be managed by a management contractor (the process of procurement is already well advanced). The privatisation of the power utilities is unique and different from previous privatisation programmes in the country in that it is driven by the need for efficiency and investment rather than optimisation of proceeds to the government. Indeed we have tagged this event ‘Privatising for Efficiency’.”

Although she refused to disclose how many companies have so far indicated interest, but reiterated that “the transaction process will be transparent and the divestiture will be through international competitive bidding. In other words, the transactions will revolve around our cherished core values of accountability and due process. It is apt to point out that only bidders’ technical ability and financial capability that will influence the outcomes.”