Nigeria has a troubled power sector which is however undergoing reforms that, hopefully, should usher in era of private sector dominance in terms of ownership and management of generation and distribution. In this transitory phase, it is crucial to lay a foundation for local sourcing of vital inputs and make it the norm for the industry. That is the only way to prevent a replication of the trend in the oil and gas sub-sector, where capital flight is as much as $16 billion per annum, as revealed by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund.
The PHCN could legitimately insist on quality and standards in its procurement of equipment and materials, but what is playing out is an institutional orientation, evinced in several pursuits of the PHCN that are contemptuous of Nigeria's aspiration for local content development. In 1998, the defunct National Electric Power Authority defied a directive by the then Minister of Power and steel, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, to source its costable components from Nigerian foundries, some of which are of high standards. Actuated by a realization of idle capacity in the foundries and the need to conserve foreign exchange, the Minister applied appropriate pressure on the management of NEPA but found his efforts frustrated. The acute shortage or inefficiency in the metering programme originated from the fact that the only local manufacturer then, the Federal Government-owned electricity Meter Company in Zaria, Kaduna State, established in 1976, but sold to Dantata Investments Limited in December 2002, is not performing.
(Adapted from The Punch, Wednesday, May 25, 2011. Pg. 18)
