Ministerial Retreat (Day 2)

Ministerial Retreat on the Integrated National Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan

Venue: Transcorp Hilton Hotel

Date: 12-14, December, 2023

Day 2

The retreat continued with focus on the reliability of the power system as “the single and ultimate goal of all policy prescriptions and then discussed the key underlying characteristics of the NESI that challenge the attainment of electricity reliability”.

Discussions centered on the importance of governance and deliberate government policies to ensure contract discipline and access to finance/capital in the power sector. Corporate governance is key to successful implementation of power sector revamp and Meritocracy is a key part of this. The retreat highlighted that the independence of the state electricity regulator with the support and backing of ministry of energy/power in the state will help state electricity markets to succeed.

The dearth of knowledge of power systems and the lack of skills in the power sector was brought to the fore. It was made clear that without human capacity development, the power sector will be unsustainable. Deliberate policy prescriptions will be made to ensure vocational education and training, apprenticeships, power academy, and other skills/ capacity enhancing initiatives become the norm in the sector, not the exception. The interaction between academia and industry, the partnership between power sector stakeholders/market participants and the National Power Training Institute (NAPTIN) was encouraged, just as the need to focus on local content development.

Two plenary break-out sessions were held. The first examined the issue of corporate governance in public and private institutions in areas including, but not limited to the need for enforcement mechanisms around best practices for players across the value chain, emerging institutional landscape and attendant policy requirements, public sector agility issues, the need for convergence and alignments, and other solutions to ensure that the state electricity markets do not suffer the same setbacks facing the current electricity market.

Furthermore, the matter of adherence to contract and the sacrosanctity of contracts required the review/definition of processes and procedures leading to execution of contracts within the sector. It was agreed that policies should be written to among other things, be clear on the mechanisms for enforcement, supervision, administration, and regulation of executed contracts. Otherwise, funding and financing, it was established, will not come to the power sector.

The second break-out session encouraged building of capacity in the technical and non-technical areas of the power sector. States were enjoined to take the issue of training more seriously, especially in the areas of power system regulation and electricity market design. Some of the policy areas of focus are the engagement and collaboration with the intelligentsia community, strengthening of NAPTIN , local content development, research and development, industry-academia partnerships, internships, apprenticeships, etc. The retreat highlighted the need to update current power sector related curricula in the tertiary institutions of learning to reflect current realities of the energy transition, climate change, net-zero targets, and nationally determined contributions, being championed by Nigeria.

In the end, the Chief Technical Adviser to the Honourable Minister of Power, Mr. Adedayo Olowoniyi, gave a closing remarks to thank all stakeholders for attending and giving their best during the last two days. He promised further engagements to fine-tune and review policy documents when drafted. He expressed optimism that with the sort of collaboration and interests shown, the Honourable Minister of Power will definitely be able to lead the preparation of the Integrated National Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan as required by the Electricity Act, 2023.

On his part, the Honourable Minister of Power, in His vote of thanks, expressed his gratitude to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for giving the needed attention and support to the power sector. He also thanked all participants for their steadfastness throughout the course of the last 48 hours. He highlighted the support of MDAs under the Ministry of Power in making the event a reality.

Idowu Oyebanjo, PhD