21022018 - APC CRISIS LATEST :Governor demolishes senator's house

18 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018
THE recent announcement by the
Federal Government of a 20-year
electricity transmission development
plan looks persuasive on the surface,
like every other ambitious long-term
plan the government has gone into.
A document presented to the Minister
of Power, Works and Housing, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola by the Interim
Managing Director of the Federal
Government-owned Transmission
Company of Nigeria, TCN, Mr. Usman
Gur Mohammed, targets the wheeling
capacity of 10,000 megawatts by 2020
and moving up to 28,000 megawatts by
2035.
According to Fashola, the plan is
meant to ensure that, “in future, we
should no longer have the story of
stranded power. That is power that is
produced but not utilised because of no
transmission and evacuation means.”
Most successful countries engage in
long-term planning as a means of
overcoming most of their capital
developmental challenges but in
Uncertainties around FG’s 20-year power
transmission plan
Nigeria, they hardly get implemented.
They have become the greatest sources
of abandoned projects which litter our
national landscape.
Our perceived inability to make much
progress in our electric power
development plans since 1999 owes
mainly to corruption and lack of
continuity in the execution of capital
projects due to regime changes even
within the same political parties. We are
worried that this transmission plan
might suffer the same fate, since the
President Muhammadu Buhari
dispensation will not last beyond the
next five years at the maximum if he is
re-elected.
The only way to meet this ambitious
national goal is for the Nigerian
governing elite to have a change of
attitude to governance. We must start
seeing government as a continuum
beyond the narrow confines of partisan
politics and selfish interests. Each new
regime that comes on stream must key
into ongoing strategic national policies
and plans.
Another source of uncertainty about
this plan is the general realisation that
the “national grid” system of electricity
transmission has proved unworkable.
Those calling for restructuring and
devolution of powers argue that
decentralisation of power generation
and transmission is the only viable way
forward. Projecting centralised power
transmission in this country into the
next 20 years is both unrealistic and
myopic.
We must begin to look at the
alternative opportunities that a
decentralised system of transmission
presents. We strongly believe that if the
national grid is devolved to the six
geopolitical zones, for instance, power
generation and transmission to the
various localities will be more speedily
optimised.
Every zone will use what they have,
be it hydro, gas, thermal, wind, solar
or a mix of all to get what they want.
Healthy competition will ensue among
the various zones and we will be able
to achieve far more than 28,000MW of
electricity by 2035.
We should not hang an expensive,
long-term plan on a tried-and-failed
centralised national grid system.
By Gabriel Makanjuola
HOW else can one describe the
recent invitation of licensed PSPs
by VisionScape, the Lagos State
Government’s foreign waste manager, to
outsource short-haul transportation of
municipal waste within the state but an
irony, an attempt by a patient to administer
treatment on his doctor? Here is a patient,
who is so sick that everyone is expecting
his death, then suddenly from his state of
helplessness on his sick bed, he turns
round and feebly tries to treat his healthy
doctor. How can this be?
Here is a company that has woefully
failed to live up to expectation over a
year since the State Government signed
a 10-year contractual agreement with it
to displace the about 350 PSP operators
from domestic waste collection and
disposal in the state without any good
reason at a time the state was nationally
and internationally acclaimed the
cleanest in the country.
But unfortunately, heaps of refuse and
waste which Lagosians thought they have
put behind them for good, are back all over
the city particularly on major roads and
highways. Homes are almost being
swallowed up by unmoved refuse, just as
rats which feed fat on heaps of undisposed
food remnants have not only grown fatter
but are mistaken for rabbits. They are
multiplying in millions and contesting
space with humans. Lagos has returned
to its pre-1999 years when it earned the
sobriquet of the dirtiest city in the world.
OPINION
When the waste patient turns medic
Then, very unashamedly, the company
that was so highly promoted as having the
magic wand to better manage the waste
processes in Lagos with the cheaper funds
it would bring in, put up a public notice
on Monday, February 12, 2018 to invite
The beauty of waste
management lies in its
transparency; it has a way of
showcasing and regulating
itself; you know when it’s
working and when it’s not; the
indication is always in the
clean or filthy state of the
environment
licensed PSPs for outsourcing of short-haul
transportation of municipal waste within
Lagos State. That call for the licensed PSP
operators it has so much disparaged before
now is nothing but an advertisement of its
incompetence, its inability to fulfill its
contractual obligations and a betrayal of
Government’s confidence in its ability and
exclusive reserve of domestic waste
collection and disposal. It has also tacitly
admitted that the PSPs are good at what
they do contrary to the negative impression
of them it had earlier tried to give.
But far beyond this is the question it
raises, that is, if by that publication the
private company has not appropriated
and usurped the role of the state waste
management regulatory agency, the
Lagos Waste Management Authority,
LAWMA, and that of the supervisory
Ministry of Environment, MoE.
Very laughable was the 48-hour
timeframe for expression of interest in
the outsourcing of the short-haul
transportation of municipal waste by
the PSPs. It was a show of false illusion
of self-worth, believing that legislating
operators out of existence through the
connivance of the state legislature will
send operators scampering for cover
with their tails between their legs back
to their offices. But they are dead
wrong! It only got them thinking,
making them job seekers. They soon
realised that the PSP operators too are
investors and money talks. Millions of
Naira is required daily to fuel and fix
the trucks and those who worked hard
to earn it will not fritter it away just because
a company suddenly enjoys a monopoly
in the business.
If the government is really interested in
its Cleaner Lagos Initiative, it should
extend to the local PSP operators the same
contract terms it has initiated with
VisionScape and see if they will not amaze
it with their delivery within the shortest
possible time unlike the foreign expert now
asking for 18 months to exhibit its much
advertised wizardry in waste management.
The local PSP operators they claimed were
incompetent and lack the equipment to be
in the business are now the ones helping
them to move the overwhelming heaps of
waste they are unable to contend with
while state officials are pretentiously
looking away as if they are unaware of
what is happening. The beauty of waste
management lies in its transparency. It has
a way of showcasing and regulating itself.
You know when it’s working and when it’s
not. The indication is always in the clean
or filthy state of the environment.
Lack of proper understanding of waste
management is not only responsible for
government’s action in throwing the state
back into this messy waste entrapment we
now find ourselves, but the reason the
dump sites have terribly gone bad and are
collapsing. The dumpsites are full and a
disaster waiting to happen. PSPs have no
problem of collection but of dumping. If
the issues that created the fault lines are
not addressed, they will remain clogs in
the wheel of any waste management
programme of government until they are
resolved. Operators will continue to be
inefficient if they have to stay, waiting to
dump sometimes for as long as 48 hours.
Editor’s note: Please read continuation of
Who’s Jerusalem By Nathaniel Ngerem
which began on Mondayviewpoint Online
@www.vanguardngr.com.
*Mr. Makanjuola, a public affairs
commentator, wrote from Lagos.