''Power is of course crucial and as the president said in his inaugural address, to which President Mbeki referred, the question of power is one that is absolutely crucial to manufacturing and practically everything else and we shouldn’t be rejoicing at 4000 Megawatts of power. But the problems are historical and several of those problems will need tackling head on, on a day-by-day basis, Osinbajo said.
''One aspect of the problem that I want to speak about, because this also affects manufacturing, is the whole idea of the tariffs. Of course the president of MAN just said that we have one of the most expensive electricity in the world.
''Until things stabilize somewhat, tariffs cannot remain at the levels at which they are today, they cannot remain at that level, and that just simply is the truth of the matter.
''It certainly means that there may be higher costs, but I don’t think that an option of not having power is really what we want. The real issue of course is that at the end of the day, some of the cost goes to the consumer, but a cost reflective tariff is an absolute necessity, otherwise, privatization and all of that simply doesn’t make sense.''
On CBN restrictions on foreign currency:
''I want to make it absolutely clear that the position is not that a review of the CBN restrictions on foreign exchange is imminent. It is a short term measure, not a policy, and as things improve, we will have a discussion about what to do. But certainly not that a review is about to take place.''
For more on Osinbajo's speech on electricity tariffs in Nigeria, click here
\
No comments:
Post a Comment