Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has said former President Goodluck Jonathan reversed electricity tariff to get votes.
Fashola said this on Thursday while speaking at a public lecture organised by the department of economics, University of Lagos.
He said the privatisation of the power sector was deceptive.
The minister noted that the reduction of electricity tariff created “massive debt” for Nigeria as it did not conform to the realities of the country’s economy.
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“While I fully support privatisation, I believe what took place in 2013 in the heat of politics was a privatisation that was well intentioned since 2005 but delivered with some deception in 2013 with the expectation of political profit,” Fashola said.
“It led many uninformed Nigerians to believe that once the privatisation was concluded, the assets sold to the distribution companies (DisCos) and the Generation companies (GenCos) there was immediately going to be power. I cautioned then that people’s expectations were being unduly raised without telling them that there was a lot of work to do.
“Government must also not interfere with the power of the regulator when it fixes tariff in the way the last administration ordered a reversal of tariff in order to win electoral votes in 2014.
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“It created a massive debt for Nigeria, because while the government ordered a reversal of tariff, it did not reduce exchange rate, interest rate, cost of wages or cost of gas and other inputs necessary to produce power. Why should Nigeria carry a debt created by an individual’s electoral ambition? This is what the Buhari administration has to contend with.”
So after Two years of handing us constant blackouts you are still giving excuse instead of solutions and apologies? #SenseFallOnYou
I feel the National Assembly should have power to sack incompetent ministers. With that I think we will make a lot of progress
Fashola is a failure, stop this funny and baseless excuses
Six months has past since APC like you never do anything am sorry for you Mr proud
What have you been waiting for in increasing it by yourself.
Is this not madness.
Your quotes are everywhere in the social media.
Don’t forget ‘agbatu eyo’ or did you interpret it to amateurs.
Please, work and forget the past.
Was it same Jonathan that instructed Discos not to give out prepaid metres?
Stop these excuses Mr Darkness. We are not interested