‘FG Lacks Political Will To Reform Power Sector’

Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), Professor Howells Hart, has accused the federal government lacks the transparency and political will to tackle the challenges facing the country’s power sector.
Hart made this comment while speaking at the 2012 Mechanical Engineers Distinguished Lecture, organised by the Nigeria Institution of Mechanical Engineers (NIMechE) in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
He revealed that Nigeria, with a population of about 160 million people, generates less that 5,000 mega watts compared with South Africa with a population of about 50 million generating about 50,000 mega watts.
Hart listed some of the challenges facing the country’s power sector to include lack of proper co-ordination in the sector, the scramble for Nigeria’s power sector, and the problem of labour in, and for, the system.
These, he said, are in addition to, the question of lack of political will to follow the reform through and to stick to timelines, the problem of capacity of key implementing agencies to do their work as required, appropriate electricity tariffs, security challenges and the Nigerian factor and, above all, corruption.
The deputy vice-chancellor, who spoke on the theme ‘A Framework for Efficient and Sustainable Power Delivering in Nigeria,’ questioned the level of sincerity on the part of government and the committee set up to handle the ongoing privatisation programme.