Takang: MOFI’s Takeover of FG’s Shares in Discos’ to Resolve Structural Issues in Power Sector

* Says govt to set up national assets register

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The takeover of the federal government’s 40 per cent shares in electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) in Nigeria is part of efforts to resolve the structural problems in the power sector, the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), Dr Armstrong Takang, said yesterday.

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television, THISDAY’s broadcast arm, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Takang stated that the whole essence is to ensure that operators increase the quantum of electricity to Nigerian homes and  businesses.
MOFI which was established over 63 years and only existed as a non-operating entity before now, he said, will henceforth act as the investment asset manager on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria.

According to him, the new MOFI is important because at the moment the government has an economic agenda which requires optimal management of Nigeria’s assets, including dividend payments, capital appreciation of those assets, among others.
“As you know, the private sector is very central. The president has given a clear direction as to where we should go with respect to our economic repositioning under the renewed hope agenda.

“One of those is really the fact that steps and policies and measures must be taken to double our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth by 7 per cent above our population growth. The second is to work towards ensuring that we grow our GDP base to $1 trillion.
“The third is to ensure that we’re creating tens of millions of jobs for a lot of our young population. All of these things are not likely to happen without addressing the challenges that we have with the power sector.

“The government has already taken steps to address that. So, on the issue about transfer, it is just part of a broader picture to see how we will address some of the structural issues within the power sector with a view to ensuring that we increase the number of hours that Nigerian homes, Nigerian businesses, Nigerian industries as well as communities get light,” he stated.

And to do this, Takang added that there are many players that are involved in it,  from generation to transmission to distribution, explaining that whatever is being done now is part of that bigger programme to ensure that challenges in the power sector are addressed.
The MOFI chief executive stated that one of the three key areas being focused on by the organisation is the attempts by the federal government to have  a list of all its assets nationwide.

“The first one is around our corporate assets. And these are companies where government either owns 100 per cent or owns shares. And the job we’ve been given is to make sure that we work with the operators of those entities as well as other stakeholders to ensure that we’re professionally managing our shareholding in these entities so that value  will be created.

“Today, everybody knows what we owe. But we cannot say authoritatively what we own, how much of it we own, where it is located or the value. We need to establish a national assets register of federal government across the different asset classes.
“The third  is mobilising investment to be invested in even those assets as well as priority sectors of the economy. And so, before we start talking about how to optimise those assets, how to monetise the assets, it is important that we establish our ownership structure, our rights and authenticat where they are located,” he added.