Stakeholders have called for greater accountability in the management of public water infrastructure, power, and waste management in Nigeria.
The stakeholders, drawn from trade unions and civil society organisations, made the call at the National Public Utilities Summit held on Wednesday in Abuja.
The summit, ‘Promoting Transparency and Decent Work in Supply Chains in Electricity, Water, and Waste Services in Sub-Saharan Africa’, was organised by Public Services International in collaboration with DGB Bildungswerk Bund.
The event reviewed the impact of the PSI-DGB project on promoting decent work and addressing privatisation in the water, electricity, and waste sectors.
Mr Philip Jakpor, Executive Director of the Renevlyn Development Initiative, said that adopting public-private partnerships would improve the management of public utilities by promoting transparency, accountability, and quicker responses to public concerns.
RDI is among the CSO partners of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, and the National Union of Electricity Employees under the PSI-DGB project.
Mr Jakpor urged governments to suspend the privatisation of public utilities and focus on strengthening public water infrastructure through political commitment.
“The public utilities can work if the government has the political will and is ready to ensure that there is transparency and accountability,” he said.
Mr Jakpor said some countries Nigeria was modelling its PPP scheme on were taking back their utilities from private companies due to corruption and compromised standards, leading to water pollution.
According to him, adopting PPPs to manage waterworks and power plants built with public funds does not guarantee they will be managed well.
“The power sector was handed over to private companies, and 13 years down the line, the argument for which the government sold these institutions is defeated. There is no electricity, and Nigerians are paying for it. We have had more national grid collapses between 2013 and today—over 150,” he said.
Mr Jakpor added that private companies did not invest anything tangible to move from 12,500 MW to the 70,000–100,000 MW that Nigeria actually requires.
“In fact, out of the installed capacity of about 12,000MW, the distribution is only in the range of 4000, and it sometimes collapses to 2000, 1500,” he said.
Similarly, Jaiye Gaskia, director of the Centre for Transformative Governance, said the constitution provides that essential public services should be delivered by public institutions rather than outsourced.
Mr Gaskia stated that private companies prioritise profit over service, making it necessary to seek the reversal of privatisation in the electricity sector.
Abiodun Bakare, PSI national project coordinator (Value Chains), called for the adoption of PuPs as a better approach to managing public utilities than privatisation, particularly in the electricity, water, and waste sectors.
Mr Bakare said the summit brought together experts, including public affairs analysts and trade union organisations, to explore alternatives to the privatisation of public utilities. He added that the recommendations would be presented to the government as part of their advocacy for PuPs.
NAN reports that the meeting brought together trade unions and civil society organisations from Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.
(NAN)
