Epileptic power supply: DisCos owners are political appointees — Buhari alleges
…Says they have no knowledge of power, engineering
…FG should sack DisCos across regions —Bala Zaka
By Uthman Salami and Seth Akanni
President, Muhammadu Buhari has declared those managing Distribution Companies (DisCos) across as mere political appointees who lack knowledge of engineering and power.
The president stated this during an exclusive Media interview with Channels Television which was aired yesterday.
Supporting the line of thought of the President, Bala Zaka, an energy economist advised the Federal government to sack all the DISCOs across the country.
While addressing the challenges bedeviling the power sectors in country, Buhari said DISCOs had no value and business in the sector.
He said, “Let us first answer the question. TCN is 100 percent government. But we inherited what we called Discos. They are in the country based on geo-political zones. What was the basis?The people that own them who are they?
“They are not electrical engineers. They don’t have money, it is just a political favour, and to remove a system and reintroduce another is not a joke.
“We have the TCN — that is transmission — and if we can get our technology right with plenty satellites we have — what we need are all over the place, and we cut the cost on transmission and the likelihood of sabotaging the light and so on.”
Bala Zaka while laying credence to the Buhari’s assertion on DisCos, said the people should move away from assumption that government are bad business managers.
in his words, “My advice is this; we should move away from the assumption that government is a bad business economic manager. This is very dangerous and is destroying this country.
“How can you say someone is a very bad manager but will be receiving revenue into the country coffers. Yet when it comes to the managing of the economy, they will say government are bad persons and economic managers.
“As a result, they privatized everything. This practice is only done in Nigeria. All these Chinese firms that are constructing roads and airports in Abuja and all over Nigeria are owned by Chinese government not private company. Not all the people in the private sectors are good.
“The people whom they sold the DisCos to are incompetent. My advice is government should take over many of the services that have to do with the provision of goods and services to citizens.
“Let government handle them so that all these things can work. The federal government should sack DisCos. Any government that cannot be a good economic manager should be a political leader. Any person aspiring to be a political leader must be a good economic manager.
“This is because if you are not a good economic manager and they made you a political leader whether as a local government head, governor or president, you will not be able to manage the economy of the place you’re governing.
“You must have economic knowledge before you aspire for political position,” he said.
