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FINANCIAL MATTERS: Harmonising the 2011 appropriations bill
FINANCIAL MATTERS: Harmonising the 2011 appropriations bill
Anyone wanting to
understand the interest generated by the harmonised version of the 2011
appropriation bill recently passed by both houses of the National
Assembly will do well not to look too hard at the numbers.
Until we
comprehensively reform the framework for managing public expenditure in
the country, budget numbers would not be worth the fancy paper on which
they are written. Notwithstanding, the numbers in question tell quite a
story.
The executive bill
for this year’s appropriations, which went to the National Assembly,
was for N4.2tn. At N4.9tn, the National Assembly’s appropriation bill
thus represents a 17 per cent increase on the version sent in by the
executive.
In addition, the
N1.3tn deficit included in the National Assembly’s bill is equivalent
to 4.3 per cent of the economy’s total output. Against this, the fiscal
responsibility act recommends a 3 per cent limit on the annual budget
deficit as a share of GDP.
Consider, however,
that in the period between when the executive sent the appropriations
bill to the National Assembly, and when the latter agreed on the
harmonised version, the price of the major financial driver of our
national budget, hydrocarbon exports, had moved from around US$85 per
barrel (pb) to a little under US$120pb.
With the crisis in
the Middle East and North African region expected to dominate the oil
price outlook all through this year, crude oil prices should remain
elevated well into the first quarter of 2012. Therefore, there is
enough on the revenue side to support higher public spending figures.
Running on this
argument, the harmonised version of the 2011 appropriations bill pushed
the oil price benchmark for the budget up from the US$65pb with which
the executive made its calculations to a more robust US$75pb.
Then, there is the
huge public infrastructure problem with which a country that has the
development rhetoric spot-on must contend with. I do not believe that
the new consensus around the public-private partnership (PPP), being
the new route to plugging the nation’s infrastructure hole, absolves
government of further spending in this regard.
Even if one
concedes that the burden of national provision of physical
infrastructure is now private, that still leaves us with the need to
meet the generally accepted indicative ratios for public spending on
health and education, if the millennium development goals are to make
any sense. Even the much talked about transition in the role of the
public sector from service provider to regulator has to be funded.
Then there are the
gaps in social infrastructure with which we have had to contend. The
rot here is no less severe than with our roads, railways, etc. Except
of course the intent ultimately is to add the police and the judiciary
to the PPP framework, the spending needed over the medium-term to bring
the criminal justice system up to scratch is large, and would come
entirely from the public budget. We could do with a police force with
fewer officers, but a lot more technology. The judiciary too would
benefit from having at least a functioning and networked personal
computer in every courtroom in the country.
On this reasoning,
if we are to spend money on these as part of our development
aspirations, why does the finance minister think the harmonised version
of the 2011 appropriations bill “un-implementable”? Certainly, not
solely because a budget on this basis is likely to be expansionary or
inflationary.
To begin with, the
original bill sent by the president to the National Assembly also
included its own deficit: equivalent to 3.6 per cent of GDP. So, it is
not just the fact of a deficit that flaws the National Assembly’s
spending argument.
Admittedly, the one
deficit is larger than the other, but at what point is a deficit
expansionary, or capable of driving inflation pressures? At 3.0 per
cent, 3.6 per cent or 4.3 per cent of GDP?
Evidently, in
cavilling at the budget numbers that have come out of the National
Assembly, government’s number crunchers are splitting hairs.
More so, this is a
government whose budget figures for last year represented a 50 per
cent-plus increase on the 2009 appropriations, notwithstanding the fact
that the deficit for last year was anywhere between 5 per cent and 6
per cent of GDP.
It is obvious that
we must look for more sophisticated reasons to object to the National
Assembly’s version of the appropriation bill.
The opposition’s strategic mistake
The opposition’s strategic mistake
Nobody could accuse
them of not giving prior warning. Close to a week before the
presidential and vice presidential debate organised by the Nigerian
Electoral Debate Group was to take place, the presidential candidates
of three political parties: the Action Congress of Nigeria; All Nigeria
Peoples Party and the Congress for Progressive Change had warned that
they would not participate in the debate with Goodluck Jonathan.
The three
gentlemen, Nuhu Ribadu, Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Shekarau,
predicated their decision on the president’s absence at an earlier
debate organised by cable television station, NN24. Leaving the
president to stand on the podium by himself, the men must have decided,
is sweet revenge for their own perceived slight.
This argument is
alluring in its simplicity. Reduce the importance of the NEDG debate,
focus the energy of the candidates on other things (possibly) and put
President Jonathan in an uncomfortable position of being seen as aloof
and having to explain why this is so.
When the debate
took off Wednesday evening, there was only Mr Jonathan on the podium to
take questions from a panel drawn from the Nigerian Guild of editors,
Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria and the Nigerian Bar Association.
It is hard to see
how Messrs Buhari, Ribadu and Shekarau could see themselves coming out
as winners from the incident. Being alone on the stage did not diminish
Mr Jonathan’s carriage. He cut the image of relaxed assuredness, even
cracking jokes with the panellists. What is more, being alone allowed
him to put his views on the NN24 absence across to his audience –
unchallenged because his opponents decided to stay away.
It is possible
that, as a tactic, staying away probably served its purpose. There are
even insinuations that some of the candidates stayed away because they
did not quite perform well in the NN24 debate moderated by NEXT’s
Kadaria Ahmed. According to this rendering, the campaign managers of
these candidates would not then rather have them exposed to another
public grilling. This is probably tosh. But then, how do we know, when
the candidates did not show up to speak for themselves?
I, therefore, think
that the boycott is both wrongheaded and a strategic mistake. Even if
the candidates were aggrieved, participating in the Wednesday event
could only be a gain-gain situation for them. They would have, for one,
reached another set of Nigerians whom they couldn’t reach in the first
debate. They could have confronted Mr Jonathan on air directly and seek
to discomfit him. They would have appeared as statesmen who will not be
dissuaded by a little thing as having to debate without one of their
opponents.
Instead, they
appeared petty and petulant. And they handed the initiative to their
key opponent. I mean, who will readily pass over the opportunity to
address millions of Nigerians who listened to the debate on radio and
television – both terrestrial and cable. A candidate like Mr Shekarau,
who did rather well at the last debate, would have consolidated on
this. But he was nowhere to be found.
The debate caught me on the road, so I started off listening to it
on the radio. Reason why I even knew it started was because I and some
friends saw clusters of people around television sets on a street in
Ikeja, Lagos. A glimpse at one of the sets revealed the president in a
world of his own – taking questions and answering same in full glare of
Nigerians. Maybe he performed well, maybe he didn’t. His listeners will
have to decide that for themselves. But his lone appearance couldn’t
have hurt his campaign any.
IMHOTEP: Dark clouds over Cote d’Ivoire
IMHOTEP: Dark clouds over Cote d’Ivoire
Recent upheavals in
the Arab world may have turned the world’s attention away from Cote d’
Ivoire. In the period of our own elections, Nigerians may view Abidjan
as a remote Schleswig-Holstein; a quarrel in a far-away country between
people of whom we know nothing. In truth, if Ivory Coast implodes, it
would be a setback for ECOWAS and indeed for our entire continent.
The trigger for the
current crisis is the dispute over the results of the December
electoral re-run, in which both Gbagbo of the FPI and Ouattara of the
RDR are claiming victory. The UN and the “international community” are
adamant that Ouattara is the winner and have threatened Gbagbo with
dire consequences if he does not surrender power immediately. Gbagbo,
on his part, insists that it is not up to the UN or, indeed, “the
international community”, to decide who has won elections in a
sovereign country. He is claiming victory based on the pronouncements
of the Constitutional Council which declared him the winner – a council
that his opponents murmur is controlled by the government.
It is a murky
business. Even the AU has acknowledged in a secret memo that there have
been widespread irregularities in the rebel-controlled north. The UN
has never pretended to be a neutral arbiter on this matter. And some
would not fail to take judicial notice that the Head of UN
Peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, happens to be French.
Gbagbo has wept on
more than one occasion while addressing his people, describing his
country as an orphan being attacked by a consortium led by France and
other powerful international interests. Strangely enough, both sides of
the narrative are right. And both are wrong. I take my own stand with
the defenceless Ivoirien people who are suffering the brunt of this
quixotic melodrama being enacted by crooks and knaves on both sides of
the equation.
Laurent Gbagbo
started life as a youth activist who openly challenged the venerable
Old Fox of Yamoussoukro before it was fashionable to do so. He and his
wife Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, both of them university academics, were
often in and out of prison. Gbagbo’s credentials in democratic struggle
are unassailable. However, having been in power since 2000, he has
outlived his relevance. He has disappointed his followers by preserving
France’s monopolistic privileges over such public utilities as water,
electricity, telecoms, roads and oil. His record in economic management
has been, quite frankly, weak.
As for Ouattara, a
large section of Ivoirien youth view him as the candidate of the
French, Burkinabes, Malians and Senegalese; and of the World Bank and
IMF, where he once served in the exalted position of Deputy Managing
Director.
He is no doubt a
competent technocrat. His problem is his backers; comprising a ragtag
of mercenaries that make up the ‘forces nouvelles’ and shadowy
reptilian types from places as wide apart as Ukraine, Lebanon and Iran.
Ivoiriens will not forget in a hurry that it is these people that
unleashed a civil war on their country.
At the root of this
tragedy is the economic divide between the north and the south. There
is also the brooding figure of Blaise Compaore across the border. Over
2 million Burkinabe migrant workers have provided the labour in the
cocoa and coffee plantations which have sustained the Ivoirien economy.
He could not be expected to ignore their fate. Félix Houphouët-Boigny
failed to bequeath a legacy on which an orderly constitutional order
could be established.
There is also the
stranglehold of France-Afrique which has made nonsense of Ivoirien
sovereignty for all these years. Some 85 per cent of the cash flow of
the country goes through the BCEAO, the regional central bank of the
French-backed West African Economic Community, to the French Treasury
which has veto powers over how the Francophone countries can spend
their own money. The French have arrogated to themselves the right of
first refusal for public works contracts and the most lucrative raw
materials concessions.
If Ouattara manages
to actuate his internationally acquired prize, he would still have to
address these realties, including the nitty-gritty of governing his own
people. Ahead is not the bliss of summer, but a night of icy darkness
and toil, to echo Max Weber.
Since God Himself
speaks French, I could never consider myself to be anti-French. I went
to school in Vichy and Paris. And my intellectual life, you could say,
is a permanent dialogue with Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Sartre, Camus and
St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
But France makes me
sad. In Cote d’Ivoire and elsewhere, France remains the obstacle to the
final liberation of our continent. If this great country descends into
murderous chaos, France must be held ultimately responsible.
The dissident’s wife
The dissident’s wife
With the world’s
attention on the uprisings in the Middle East, repressive regimes
elsewhere are taking the opportunity to tighten their grip on power. In
China, human rights activists have been disappearing since a call went
out last month for a Tunisian-style “Jasmine Revolution.” I know what
their families are going through. Almost a year ago, the Chinese
government seized my husband and since then, we have had no news of
him. I don’t know where he is, or even if he is alive.
In 2001, the
Ministry of Justice listed my husband, Gao Zhisheng, as one of the top
10 lawyers in China. But when he began representing members of
religious groups persecuted by the government, he became a target
himself. His law license was revoked, and our family placed under
constant surveillance. In 2006, he was convicted of inciting subversion
based on a confession he made after his interrogators threatened our
two children. He received a suspended sentence, but was briefly
detained again a year later for writing an open letter to the U.S.
Congress documenting human rights abuses in China.
Zhisheng wouldn’t
give up his work, and yet he was frightened for me and our children, so
I fled with them to asylum in the United States. Soon after we left, in
February 2009, he was seized by security officials, and that time held
without charges for more than a year. International pressure persuaded
the government to release him. But two weeks later, as soon as the
world’s attention moved elsewhere, he was abducted again. That was last
April. No one has heard from him since.
We have good cause
to fear that he is suffering. My husband has been tortured many times.
In 2007, officials subjected him to electric shocks, held lighted
cigarettes up to his eyes and pierced his genitals with toothpicks. In
2009, the police beat him with handguns for two days. He has been tied
up and forced to sit motionless for hours, threatened with death and
told that our children were having nervous breakdowns.
Though his
treatment has been especially harsh, my husband is only one of many
political prisoners in China. Among them are Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel
Peace Prize laureate, who is serving an 11-year sentence for
subversion, and his wife, Liu Xia, who is under house arrest. A human
rights group reports that more than a hundred bloggers and rights
advocates have been interrogated or detained in connection to the
“Jasmine Revolution.” And especially ominous have been the
disappearances of other prominent human rights lawyers, like Jiang
Tianyong, Teng Biao and Tang Jitian.
In Barack Obama’s
speech to the United Nations last year, he said “freedom, justice and
peace for the world must begin with freedom, justice and peace in the
lives of individual human beings.” The Chinese government must not be
allowed to claim that China is a nation operating under the rule of law
while persecuting those who try to ensure that it respects the law. And
when the government silences dissent, the international community must
speak up. Indeed, I am excited to have just learned that the United
Nations has demanded that my husband be released, and hopeful that it
will take a stand for the other prisoners as well. I appeal to Obama –
a father, lawyer and leader of the country that has become my family’s
new home – to make sure it does so. At the very least, he should ask
President Hu Jintao to let Zhisheng contact us.
If he has been killed, we should be allowed the dignity of laying him to rest.
Geng He is the wife of a human rights lawyer missing in China. This essay was translated from the Chinese New York Times
Ribadu’s plan for the economy
Ribadu’s plan for the economy
The presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Nuhu Ribadu, has stated that he will focus on nine major policy themes that would enable the nation address and effectively manage the difficulties that its citizens are presently grappling with. Spelling out his vision in his manifestoes, he listed the policy themes as human capital development, the economy, infrastructure, governance, youth empowerment, agriculture, and food security. Others are defence and national security, Niger Delta, and foreign policy. Without doubt, these are issues that are close to the hearts of the people. The nation is on the porch of another general election, the fourth since the return of democracy. Many candidates have been proclaiming their manifestoes on how to make the nation’s economy better, on how they can ensure justice, secure lives and properties, encourage investors to bring in their much needed funds and expertise. Mr. Ribadu said that the Nigerian economy is performing below potential and is not creating enough jobs for its teeming youth. “Though the economy is growing at around 6 per cent per annum, it could grow at a much faster pace and more importantly, it could create more jobs if the right policies are pursued. The economy has to be managed with fiscal prudence so that we are not spending much more than we take in as revenues,” Mr. Ribadu had said.He said the fiscal deficit, which was kept at 3 per cent of GDP from 2003-2007, has now doubled to 6 per cent, implying a great deal of spending without much impact or results on the ground.”We shall budget within our means and keep overspending to a minimum. We shall rebuild our foreign exchange reserves back to a robust level of US$50 billion or more; and plan for a steady and attainable economic growth rate of 7-8 per cent per year for the next five years, and 8-10 per cent per year for the years following that. This growth must be job-creating growth focused on both the oil and non-oil sectors of the economy,” he added.Nigeria’s imports and payments in 2010 rose by 37 per cent to $41billion from $30 billion in 2009, and its exports also surged by $20 billion to $79.4 billion. Experts believe that the Nigerian external account should be robust enough to support the naira at an artificially determined rate of exchange. However, there has been significant depletion in the external reserves position by about 38 per cent since 2008.”The depletion of the external reserves, in spite of higher oil prices and strong production figures, has become a source of national and international concern,” Bismarck Rewane, managing director, Financial Derivatives Company, a finance research and analysis firm, said. He added that the depletion of reserves, which he called “haemorrhage of reserves”, would put the economy on an even keel, tough for the next government.
Battling corruption
Even if the economy is helped to a point where the nation would be a bit confident of its progress, the fear of most citizens is that corruption, the venom which has eaten deep into people in positions of power, would bring the economy down.This same vice has made it difficult for the country and even investors, local and foreign, to invest in strategic areas of the economy. In spite of the vast oil revenue the nation has generated over the past five decades, it still has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world.Mr. Ribadu says his vision is not only a bold new system that punishes corruption, but one “that also taps into the energies and innovation of our people to generate shared prosperity driven by honest labour, an abiding sense of commitment, and a desire to fix our broken society and restore our shared national values of honesty, integrity, discipline, hard work, and respect.”According to him, corruption only thrives when a government and its key functionaries are not accountable to the voting public. “We will empower our citizens to enable them fully participate in governance and also serve as a countervailing power able to check the excesses of the government,” Mr. Ribadu had also said.
Oil and gas sector and the Niger Delta policy
Investigation reveals that gas flaring, spillages and other environmental pollutions, uprisings and unrest, poverty, violence, and insecurity are some of the many factors that still pose challenges to the nation’s oil production capacity.Mr. Ribadu said to address these challenges, he will review the amnesty programme began by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and encourage greater involvement of the private sector in order to address the fundamental needs of the demobilised militants which are jobs, a sense of self-worth, and a new social and political order in the Niger Delta in which they can participate as active citizens.”We will endeavour to expand the job pool in the region by working with the state governments to revive moribund industrial and agricultural projects, sourcing expertise from the private sector,” he said.Experts and industry watchers have canvassed for the petroleum local content bill and the Petroleum Industry Bill, and have said that their advantages need to be fully tapped.The commercialisation of the NNPC, which is a fallout of the PIB, could be a positive development towards the progress of the nation’s oil and gas sector.”In general, it is our view that the commercialisation of the NNPC can be a positive development. We have seen positive examples in other countries (that is Statoli, Petrobras, etc). Therefore, if done properly, it can lead towards providing a premier/leading Nigerian company in the oil and gas industry that can be on the forefront of new technologies,” Dragan Trajkov, oil and gas expert, Renaissance Capital, said.Given its potential size, it can potentially look for opportunities outside Nigeria as well and being a commercial entity, it will allow management to concentrate on profitability, and on a longer term, create value for all shareholders. “With potentially selling portion of it to the public (assuming it will be listed in Nigeria), it will enable Nigerian investors to participate in the oil and gas sector. Right now, other than Oando, I don’t believe there is really a publicly listed company in Nigeria that investors can invest in and participate in the upstream exploration and production,” Mr. Trajkov said.In terms of power, Mr. Ribadu said he will move to diversify the energy mix by introducing coal powered plants which will employ clean coal technologies.
Stability and investment
Mr. Ribadu pointed out that the exchange rate is a strategic tool for altering national behaviour and consumption patterns, and not only a tactical tool for satisfying the addictive propensity of Nigerians to import.”For example, ever since the Ivorian crisis, the world price of cocoa has surged by 16 per cent. The Nigerian farmers have not been able to respond to this opportunity by increasing supply. The relatively overvalued exchange rate over time had made Nigerian cocoa more expensive relative to Ghanaian cocoa where the cedi has been subject to a more flexible exchange rate mechanism. “Today, Nigeria is a triple beneficiary of a surge in oil prices, increase in demand for LNG, and an increase in oil production,” Mr. Ribadu said.Mr. Rewane said there is the temptation to ignore the structural problems of the economy and continue the addiction of an import consumption binge, with a subsidized currency. “However, this is the time to step back and take a more measured and strategic approach to exchange rate management. It is time to allow greater flexibility and reduce the frequency of intervention,” he said.
TOMORROW, ANPP Shekarau’s economy agenda
Eni boss contacts Libyan rebels on energy future
Eni boss contacts Libyan rebels on energy future
Eni’s chief
executive has contacted rebels in Benghazi about energy cooperation, as
the Italian oil and gas group moved to protect its role as the leading
foreign oil operator in Libya.
Eni’s efforts were
supported on Monday by Italy giving Libyan rebels its full backing. CEO
Paolo Scaroni had phone contact with representatives of the rebels’
National Transitional Council in recent days, Italy’s foreign ministry
said. Eni declined to comment.
That corrected an
earlier comment by minister Franco Frattini who said Scaroni visited
Benghazi two days ago and had meetings on restarting cooperation on
energy with the council. There had been concern that state-controlled
Eni’s position in Libya could be undermined by Italy’s hesitant backing
for the rebel movement, paving the way for a greater say for French
group Total and maybe British firms.
Britain and France led the drive for intervention in Libya to protect rebels from strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Italian premier
Silvio Berlusconi, long Gaddafi’s closest European ally, was subdued in
supporting rebels at first, while key coalition partner the Northern
League opposed intervention.
Eni dominance
Eni,present in Libya since the 1950s, is the biggest foreign oil company there,
producing 270,000
boed (barrels of oil equivalent per day) in 2010 . Its contracts are in
force to 2042 for oil production and 2047 for gas.
Early in March,
Scaroni called on Europe to abandon sanctions against Libya, adding
relations with Tripoli had not been hurt and Lybia’s National Oil
Corporation (NOC) was its main interlocutor.
Before the air
strikes, NOC head Shokri Ghanem said Eni’s contracts were safe. Since
then, Ghanem has said Libya was considering offering oil block
contracts directly to China, India and other nations it sees as
friends. “Eni is sitting pretty. The gas pipeline from Libya goes to
Italy and the rebels will need that. They will also need the group’s
oil experience,” said Stefano Casertano, senior fellow at German
think-tank BIGS-Potsdam.org.
At 1510 GMT, Eni shares were up 0.7 percent, with the European oil and gas sector up 0.3 percent.
Reuters
Ivorian cocoa weather good, crisis disrupts harvest
Ivorian cocoa weather good, crisis disrupts harvest
Cote d’Ivoire’s
weather last week was ideal for the development of the
April-to-September mid-crop with both rain and sunshine, but political
instability has disrupted the harvest, farmers and analysts said on
Monday.
This year’s
mid-crop cocoa was expected to be larger compared with last season. But
a violent political standoff in the world’s top cocoa producing nation
after a disputed election that has rekindled a civil war is stopping
farmers from going to their farms and many have fled the cocoa
producing regions.
In the western
region of Soubre, at the heart of the cocoa belt, one analyst working
for an industrial plantation reported 22 millimetres of rain mixed with
sunny spells adequate for the ripening and the proliferation of small
pods.
However, farmers said the political trouble has prevented them from harvesting pods already ripe on trees.
“There are lots of
ripe pods. We want to harvest them, but we cannot because there is no
means of travel,” said farmer Lazard Ake, who farms on the outskirts of
Soubre.
Soubre is one of
the towns in the cocoa producing region of Cote d’Ivoire, seized by
forces loyal to presidential claimant, Alassane Ouattara, in their
southward push. The forces now control over 90 per cent of the country,
including the cocoa exporting port of San Pedro.
“There is
insecurity and some of the fighters are seizing people’s cars and
trucks. The quality of the cocoa will degrade if the ripe pods remain
too long on the trees without being harvested,” Mr. Ake said.
In the
centre-western region of Daloa, producing a quarter of the country’s
national output, farmers reported three good rains which would help
cocoa beans. They said many growers have fled the town for the
campaign, fearing for their security.
“The rain is good
and all is well with cocoa,” said farmer Marcel Aka. He added the many
farmers have fled the city to go to the forest where they can find food
easily.
In the southern region of Aboisso, analysts reported 37.7 millimetres.
“The weather is
good, but there is no one to buy the cocoa,” said farmer Etienne Yao,
who added that many growers are not bothering to harvest.
Similar weather
conditions were reported in coastal regions of Sassandra and San Pedro,
in the eastern region of Abengourou, in southern regions of Agboville
and Divo, and in western regions of Meagui and Gagnoa. Reuters
Nigeria dumps nuclear power plans
Nigeria dumps nuclear power plans
Nigeria may have foreclosed any plans to explore nuclear energy as an alternative source of electricity power generation.
Minister
of state for power, Nuhu Wya, who gave this hint in Lagos, said the
country would explore other means of power generation in which it has
comparative advantage.
Responding
to a question at the power conference held in Lagos last week, he said
with the inherent danger in nuclear power, the country had no business
pursuing that source.
“Why
do we have to be talking about using nuclear power? If we have so many
other sources of energy that are untapped, why do we have to be talking
of one that is not readily available and is a long term development
plan? For you to put a nuclear plant and get it working, you are
talking about eight years,” Mr. Wya said.
Minister
of environment, John Odey, had said the use of nuclear energy for
electricity generation is no longer an option but a necessity, if
Nigeria is to meet her energy needs. According to him, the grid
capacity built around oil, natural gas, and hydro is not only grossly
inadequate but cannot meet the country’s current and future energy
demand.
Nuclear emergencies
However,
with this pronouncement, the government may have jettisoned the idea.
Following the earthquake in Japan, its nuclear plants, which accounts
for about 29 per cent of the country’s electricity power supply, were
badly affected, raising global concern about the dangers of nuclear
plants, especially for developing countries like Nigeria.
Though
the country has a watchdog, the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority,
which is supposed to regulate and ensure safety in the use of nuclear
energy, its state of preparedness to handle such emergencies is still
in doubt.
Mr.
Wya said the country has abundant capacity in other energy sources such
as hydro and thermal, which have not been fully utilised.
“We
have received expression of interest from firms that want to invest in
the power sector in hydro, gas, wind, coal, and solar power plants.
“We
must remember that Nigeria is gas and oil economy and already has
enough gas to potentially power the whole of Africa. In the same
manner, government has commenced effort to balance the energy needs
with the development of new sources of power from naturally evolved
resources. Already, pilot scheme for solar and wind projects are
ongoing,” Mr. Wya said.
Potential impediments
Mr.
Wya said potential impediments to the entrance of private sector
investment in every facet of the power sector will be totally
eliminated, in order to make it attractive to investors.
Chairman
of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi,
said government would guide against the emergence of monopolies and
manipulations in the power sector once it is privatised.
“It
is normal to find collusion. A market participant can be so powerful
that it can consistently act independently in keeping price above
competitive level. Electricity market can lend itself to manipulation,”
Mr. Amadi said.
He
said the commission will strive to protect consumers while ensuring
that electricity tariff will be competitive enough to encourage
investment in the sector.
“We
will protect consumers by ensuring just and fair pricing, carry out
social policies, and prevent anti-competitive practices by active
participants,” he said.
Naira under pressure after poll chaos
Naira under pressure after poll chaos
The naira and its
$500 million Eurobond could come under pressure in the coming days as
the postponement of national elections unnerves investors, traders and
analysts said on Monday.
Africa’s most
populous nation postponed parliamentary and presidential elections by a
week on Sunday, after failing to get logistics prepared in time, a
major embarrassment for a nation hoping to break with a history of
chaotic polls.
The naira traded as low as 155.00 to the dollar on Monday morning, weaker than Friday’s close of 154.10.
“It will definitely
have an impact on the perception of foreign investors … This is bad
for the external image of Nigeria. On the currency, you would expect a
bit of a sell-off,” said Coura Fall, a frontier African analyst at Citi
in Johannesburg.
