Prior to the privatisation of the successor companies of the
Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the firm employed no new engineer for over 16
years, the Federal Government has said. The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu
Nebo, said this in Abuja at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Youth Summit
organised by the Youth Initiative for Leadership and Rural Development. According
to him, this flaw and a few other issues led to the abysmal performance of the
power sector and contributed to the abandonment of electrical equipment at the
ports for several years.
Nebo, in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on
Media, Kande Daniel, on Tuesday, stated that the present reforms in the sector
had given rise to the employment of about 1,000 young engineers. He said the
reforms were being religiously implemented with a view to achieving sufficiency
in power supply, which would usher in industrialisation and greater economic
growth than had already been achieved.
On the Federal Government’s recent move of taking delivery
of 248 containers of vital electricity equipment abandoned at the Lagos ports
for several years, the minister said the abandonment was a demonstration of the
need to privatise the sector, as no private entrepreneur would have tolerated
such a waste. Nebo said the recovery of the equipment was in line with the
present administration’s policy of minimising waste and maximising benefits by
synergising with the Nigeria Customs Service to ensure the release of the
containers.
The minister and the Permanent Secretary in the ministry,
Dr. Godknows Igali, took delivery of the power transmission equipment and
ensure their evacuation for immediate delivery to project sites last Thursday. Nebo
said the Federal Government had put structures in place to make Nigerian youths
industry-ready to man the evolving private sector-driven power sector.According
to him, this will provide self and paid employment for the youth and meet the
local content requirement for the power sector so as to avoid foreign
domination. He explained that specific schemes and initiatives targeted at
empowering young Nigerians included the Power Sector Entrepreneurship
Programme, Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme and the capacity
development offered through the National Power Training Institute, whose
graduates were already being engaged to provide the needed technical expertise
in the privatised power sector.
Courtesy of: punchng
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