The Chief Executive Officer of PowerCap Limited, Engr. Biodun Ogunleye, has said that failure of government to carry out due diligence on the buyers of privatized power sector‘s assets ruined electricity generation and distribution in the country.
Ogunleye who was speaking to select journalists in Lagos, said the weak financial capabilities of the companies that bought the assets became evident after the privatization.
“There was no inflows of fund. Money was expected to flow into the sector from the international markets but from the information and foreclosure of the local banks, the money used by the new owners came from local banks. To make the matter worse, we saw a lot of those Companies relied on the cash flow from the Discos to repay loans instead of growing the Companies”
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He noted that the lack of due diligence done on the Companies that bought those power assets as there were claims and counter claims on the quality of the winners of the bids months after the privatization exercise.
These, he said, led to the poor performance of the sector adding that privatization of power has so far yielded no dividend to Nigeria.
” So far, there is no evidence of the promise of privatization” he said.
He acknowledged being one of those that advocated for the privatization of the power sector. “I make bold to say that we are one of those that actively advocated that government should get out of the power sector, that the sector need to be privatized. I have not regretted my actions “, he said
“I still make bold to say that electricity is business and should be allowed to run as business. The thinking was that government does not have enough capital to keep investing in the then NEPA” he said.
The PowerCap Boss announced that the proposed international energy conference being organized by the company billed to hold this month has been shifted to second quarter of next year 2023
Ogunleye said that Powercap started Operations about eight years ago providing knowledge based interventions and project solutions for power and energy sector.
The company has advisory services with specialized desk targeted at assuring and supporting the privatized entities to perform at their best “Our capacity Building team organizes training, seminars and conferences for sector operators, whilst our owners engineer’s services provide broad based project management services” he said.
