PUBLIC –PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP IN THE POWER SECTOR - Challenges And ProspectsABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Electricity production and supply in Nigeria has been a monopoly of the government utility body known as National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) since 1972 till early part of 2006. This utility has been run as a vertically integrated company charged with the responsibility for the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity to customers. Inadequate funding and bad management resulted in the steady decline in the performance of the utility. Electricity plants are not adequately maintained and where maintenance is attempted, reliability centred maintenance procedure is not adopted. Between 1981 and 1985, during the Fourth National Development Plan, the oil boom increases power demand growth rate by over 10 percent. The rapid growth rate makes it difficult for the installed capacity to cope with the requirement of both residential and industrial consumers.
In March, 2005 the federal government establishes the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) as an independent and self-funding sector regulator, and transforms National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and unbundles NEPA into the 19 successor companies. The plan is that by December 2006, all the successor companies would have taken-off and PHCN would be phased out.
The programme shall critically analyze the adoption of PPP as a strategy in ongoing power sector reform in Nigeria with a view to finding solution to the critical challenges. PPPs provide an opportunity to: • Improve Service Delivery• Improve cost-effectiveness• Increase investment in public infrastructure• Reduce public sector risk• Deliver capital projects faster• Better use of assetsThe participants shall be exposed to strategies that could facilitate PPP to succeed in Nigeria and to address the challenges to enhance the success of adopting PPP in the Nigerian power sector. This is the raison d’etre for this workshop.
Workshop Objective
The aims and objectives of the Training Workshop are to highlight the prospects of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the transformation of Nigerian power sector. It is believed that sustainable national development can only be achieved through creating a synergy between the private and the public sectors of the economy as is the case in many countries of the world. The workshop will therefore serve as a forum for discussing the prospects of various PPP initiatives for enhanced electricity power sector which will ipso-facto facilitate economic productivity and national development in Nigeria Designed For: This course is designed for policy makers, middle and senior level officers in the power sector. Infrastructural development organizations, organizations saddled with the responsibility of implementing Public Private Partnership.