Power Failure Not Caused By Government– Maku

The poor power supply Nigerians are
witnessing, despite the power sector
reforms of the Goodluck Jonathan's
administration, should be blamed on the
criminal activities of some citizens, the
Minister of Information and Supervising
Minister of Defence, Labaran Maku, has
said.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily on
Monday, Mr Maku defended President
Goolduck Jonathan on his August 29, 2012
promise to deliver the “dividends of
democracy by 2013.” He said that the
administration had been battling with
inherited issues of terrorism which had
consumed a lot of the State’s funds. “We
have been dealing with this for the past
three years,” he said. He was quick to add
that despite the war against insecurity,
Nigeria’s economy is growing faster than
the economies of South Africa and Egypt.
He credited this to the President’s study
of management of economy. “Even as we
are fighting this war, because the
President studied management of the
economy, today we are talking about an
economy that is growing faster than
South Africa and Egypt,” Maku said. He
stressed that resources which would have
been channeled into other sectors
including education, industry and
agriculture had been wasted on the fight
against terrorism and political wars.”
“Inspite of this, you have an economy that
this year IMF said the Nigerian economy
grew by 7.2 per cent, even above
government’s own projections 6.9 per
cent.” He continued by saying that: “In
2012, inflation was about 12.2 per cent
but today inflation has come down to 8
per cent. It has not been so for the past
20 years.” He also said that the President
has built 10 power plants in the last 3
years which no other president has
achieved in the nation’s history. "Jonathan
has undertaken a comprehensive
(complete) replacement of power
transmission infrastructure.” The
privatisation exercise is the first stage in
the reform process in the power sector,"
he explained. Although the Minister of
Power, Chinedu Nebo, recently revealed
that the new owners of the power plants
are having financial problems, Mr Maku
considered the set-back to be “a period
of adjustment.” He expressed optimism
that the policy reforms would yield
results if Nigerians were responsible
enough to desist from criminal acts
including cutting down power lines “to
cause darkness in some parts of the
country.” “These are citizen’s problems
and not problems because of the failure
of government,” he added. "This President
(Jonathan) has returned the economy to
the path of growth and development, our
financial system is better. We inherited a
crashed capital market but today the
capital market has recovered by 71
percent between 2012 and now. "In terms
of the overall value of shares, we have
gone over 11 trillion Naira. This growth
makes it clear that the President is
making the economy better than anyone,”
he stressed.