THE Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has faulted the present Federal Government's power reform agenda in the country, saying that it will be a miracle if the current proposals actually take Nigeria out of the doldrums of darkness.Indeed, the association prescribed a genuine decentralised model for the reform, arguing that the nation's power managers are merely confusing privatisation with liberalisation, as the government's bureaucracy still dogs the reform agenda.ATCON, through its president, Titi Omo-Ettu, noted that the country had harboured hopes that the managers of the ongoing energy reform would take a leaf from the modest progress made in telecommunications development in the past 18 years, replicating the things that were done right while avoiding those wrong doings, noting that, on the face of it, those hopes now seem misplaced.Omo-Ettu, an engineer, said the telecommunications sector's liberalisation was the tonic that turned the sector around, which has been clearly demonstrated in the growth witnessed in the sector in the last one decade.'At the epicenter of what we did right, was genuine liberalisation which saw us giving out licences to investors to open up our market and provide, sell, as well as augment their investment and networks.'By creating a progressively fair investment environment, we turned aspiration into reality and a subsidised loss making sector into one that returned funds into government's coffers ' all with minimal government intervention. We also made the point to government to stop throwing money at our problems.'Although these energy reform managers are inviting investors to participate in power supply process, they are merely presenting an illusionary version rather than genuine liberalisation and are deluded in thinking they will impress genuine and world-class investors in the present circumstance.'They would do well to remember that for all the development in our telecommunications sector, we have failed to attract world-class investors to date for reasons, perhaps not for mentioning in this intervention, the best of the emerging markets is all we have been able to attract thus far', he stated.According to him, producing electricity and feeding such into a national grid is not attractive to investment especially if the buyer of the product is a government rather than consumers.He said it was observed that the government eventually identified this lapse and is presenting the creation of the Nigeria's Bulk Electricity Trading Company as the answer. ' yet another illusion, which is bound to fail for it, is merely establishing a bureaucracy (regardless of the name 'Company') where a true business model solution is required.Omo-Ettu added: 'Selling our generating plants to private investors is an open invitation to full scale corruption which we should not allow under any circumstance and to that extent, we align with those who oppose privatisation of anything at this time.'Regrettably, the word 'privatisation' has been confused with 'liberalisation', thus making communication (with a small 'c') very difficult, even when there is a genuine attempt to have a dialogue. Liberalisation is about motivating investors to determine what sectors of the community they want to provide services for and they often do this without the encumbrances of dealing extensively with government bureaucracies, aside the regulator.'Citing a recommendation, which was given at the ATCON and Nigeria Society of Engineers' organised Nigerian Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (NIEEE) yearly lecture in 2009, by the guest lecturer, John Ayodele, an engineer, in the form of Distributed Generation for public electricity supply system through a model of decentralised architecture, the ATCON president opined that: 'With such a viable model, we can provide 24/7/365 supply of electricity to many parts of this country within six months. We can also generate more than 40,000 megawatts to serve various communities of the country in three years. Today, we probably do more than 30,000 megawatts except that everybody does his own generation while government augments with less than 5,000 megawatts.'Regrettably, our energy managers rather than thinking about the 'regular supply of power' via a decentralised architecture ' the forgone alternative deployed successfully in the telecommunications sector, are, for narrow self- interests, fixated on thinking in 'megawatts' in grid supply', he stated.Regrettably, he said the shift stick of progress that has become a hallmark of the telecommunications sector in spite of very poor electricity, is not only stuck in neutral but rather in danger of being stuck in reverse as it is now inconceivable that we can move forward without real improvement in infrastructure and access to adequate electricity supply. 'Knowing what we do, inaction is not an option as it will inevitably lead to the desecration of not only the energy but the telecommunication sector too.
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