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Mr. Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing

Fashola did not say power sector was illegally sold — Ministry

Mr. Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing
Mr. Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing
Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has denied remarks credited to the minister, Mr Babatunde Fashola, on his claims at a Senate Committee on Power hearing that the nation’s power sector was illegally sold.
A statement, Friday, by his special adviser on Media, Hakeem Bello, said the minister distanced himself from the alleged pronouncement, clarifying that in all his presentations before the Senate Committee, he never used the word “illegally” to refer to the privatisation of the sector.
The minister who insisted that he told the Committee that; “As minister, I inherited a power sector where government interests had been legally sold,” added that his statement can be verified by a playback of the video recording of the session.
According to the statement, the minister in tracing how the country got to this point referred to the privatisation law made in 2005, saying “The people of this country through their parliamentarians made a verdict in 2005 when you passed that law that things must change, the law was passed in 2005 and the process was completed in 2013, I wasn’t here, some of you were here, if the process is bad where was the oversight.”
Describing the Power Sector Reform Law as “a great law”, according to the statement, the minister, who had made reference to a question by one of the Senators as to when the results of privatisation would be seen, had reminded the Senate Committee that the privatisation exercise would be three years old in November this year, citing the example of the communication sector that was privatised over 10 years ago which benefits were still evolving.
Also debunking the allegation that the distribution companies were yet to make a significant investment in the sector, the statement quoted the minister as telling the Committee that “We have a challenge and I think it can be overcome, people have made statements here that are not correct and they may mislead you saying there are no investments in the sector.

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