Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos State, has urged the House of Representatives to address the problems with the 2022 electricity bill so that state governments can provide input on the state’s ability to produce their own electricity.
Following the report, the Senate passed the electricity bill in July in an effort to create a formal framework for the nation’s privatization of its electrical grid.
Sanwo-Olu noted that an increase in power generation will boost the state economy at the handover of the Lagos State Integrated Energy Resource Plan on Tuesday, which was hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.
He said: “There has been some form of privatisation but we still need a lot more. There is a bill that is currently with the National Assembly, specifically in the House of Representatives that we need to make a big case about. We want your input on the bill. We want the members of the House of Representatives to call sub-national; states so that we can have proper input into the bill and finally unbundle all of the bottlenecks in the power sector.
“We can sit down together and bring about a bill that is bankable; a bill that will help private sector funding and financing in today’s sector and a bill in which everybody can move at their pace; This kind of bill will help all of us do a good job of our worth.”
The Consul-General of the United States Consulate in Lagos, Williams Stevens, said: “This is the main dream of President Barack Obama for Africa’s development which started in 2014 and I am glad that eight years after, it has come to full circle.”
