Nigeria Content Online

The Federal Government will introduce
an electricity pricing regime in November before it sells off
distribution companies and allows private investments to build power
plants in the country.

“Pricing and regulatory issues are
being sorted out and should be completed next month,” Barth Nnaji, an
adviser to Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, said in an interview
on October 8 in Abuja.

The government will then be able to provide “the appropriate information to buyers as to what tariffs they can expect,” he said.

The market-determined plan will replace subsidised prices where consumers pay six naira ($0.04) a kilowatt, he said.

Goodluck Jonathan on August 26,
announced a plan to end the state power monopoly and allow private
investments in generation. The government will sell 11 distribution
units of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and allow private
companies to build gas-fired, coal-fueled and hydropower plants.

The government wants to increase output to 14,019 megawatts by 2013.

Six companies, including Goldman Sachs
Group Inc., Standard Chartered Plc, have expressed interest in advising
on the sale of the power generation and distribution companies that
will be completed by the first half of next year, the adviser said.

An investors’ forum will be held from October 14 to 15 in the
capital, Abuja, that will be attended by representatives from General
Electric Co., Rolls Royce Group Plc, and companies from China, South
Korea and India, Mr Nnaji said.