15 Years After, Reps Amend Power Sector Reform Act

The House of Representatives yesterday passed for second reading a bill seeking to amend the Electric Power Sector Reform Act enacted 15 years ago.

Sponsor of the bill and Chairman House Committee on Power, Aliyu Magaji Dau, while leading the debate on the bill at plenary, said the amendment became imperative following increasing challenges that affected the efficiency, corporate stability and prospects of the power sector.

He said the proposed amendments to the act were supported by inputs from stakeholders which included the Federal Ministry of Power, Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA), Power Generation Companies (GenCos) in Nigeria and the Association of Nigeria Electricity Distribution and the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria.

Economic Confidential reports that the bill has 36 clauses, key among them are Clause 6 which seeks to amend Section 26 of the Principal Act to make the Nigerian electricity supply industry more competitive in the post-privatisation era and Clause 10 which seeks to amend Section 34 to increase the criteria for selecting potential nominees for appointment as commissioners by the president.

In the same vein, Clause 16 seeks to amend Section 57 to increase the penalty from N20,000 to N50,000 against any commissioner, agent or employee of the commission over failure to comply with audit requests of producing any document or record of accounts.

The bill was referred to the House Committee on Power for further legislative work after it passed second reading.