• NERC plans uniform accounts system
THERE is a growing uncertainty over the Federal Government's target of generating 10,000 megawatts of electricity.
Indications from the Ministry of Power have it that March 2014 may no longer be feasible as the target date. Probably cognisant of the need to adopt a rather 'safe' position, the Minister of State for Power, Hajia Zainab Kuchi, said Thursday that the target would now be achieved by December 2014.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has inaugurated a working group to review and come up with a uniform system of accounts for the electricity sector.
The move, according to NERC, is part of the process of developing a uniform accounting framework to facilitate the review and analysis of the licensees' financial statements.
Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, had told reporters early this month (May 1), that the 10,000 megawatts of electricity initially targeted for December 2013 is not realisable going by realities on ground.
Nebo had stressed that the December 2013 figure, which was bantered by his predecessors and some government officials, is not realistic based on what is currently on ground.
Rather, he said something close to the figure would be realised in December, stressing that 10,000mws would be achieved by the first quarter of 2014 based on a professional and realistic analysis on the sector.
"As an engineer and knowing the realities on the ground, we will achieve this by first quarter of 2014. We need time to achieve some of the targets. We will get close to it, but the truth is that we cannot get 10,000mws by December."
But reacting to stories in some newspapers (not The Guardian), which quoted her Thursday as telling a committee of the Senate that 10, 000mws would be achievable by December 2013, Kuchi disassociated herself from the reports, stressing that nothing could be farther from the truth as the reports.
She said: "With the processes that we have put in place, the statistics available to us, and the efforts at reforming the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), we will achieve 10,000mws by December next year. Though we are generating up to 7000mws of electricity currently, we are only able to wheel 4000mws because of our poor transmission network.
"By 2014, we will be able to wheel 10,000mw, by which time the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) plants would have come on stream."
She told reporters that the privatisation programme was on course, stressing the power plants would be handed over to the new owners by July, as government was on course to sort out pending severance packages of electricity workers by June.
Her words: "The claim that the Minister of State for Power said the generation and distribution companies that were bided for last year could not be handed over to successful bidders because the companies were currently not in good shape is also not accurate. In fact, at a recent Presidential Power Signing Summit, several agreements on vesting contracts and gas supply agreements were signed with preferred bidders.
"The preferred bidders, who were fully aware of the status of the companies, expressed total confidence in the privatisation programme and were particularly eager to take over the companies having paid the initial 25 per cent of the bid price.
"So, the statement made by me was that government intends to conclude the fulfillment of the terms of agreement reached with Labour before the handing over to the preferred bides, with a handover timeline of July ending."
NERC said the system is being developed in consultation with the Financial Reporting Council (formerly Nigerian Accounting Standards Board), agreed on the adaptation of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) 2009 version of the Uniform System of Accounts (USOA).
A statement from NERC stressed that the draft was discussed with industry participants during two interactive workshops held in November and December 2011 in Calabar and Kaduna.
The Guardian