Institute urges Abuja to use indigenous professionals to tackle power supply problem

Institute urges Abuja to use indigenous professionals whose views they ignore

By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor

Unstable power supply can be tackled by indigenous professionals, the Chattered Institute of Power Engineers of Nigeria (CIPEN) has reiterated to Abuja, urging the government to encourage local solution to Nigeria’s problems.

CIPEN President Israel Abraham stressed in the city on Sunday that the government needs to trust Nigerian power engineers to end unreliable power supply.

“Government must trust its own. You must trust your own people. As it stands, government does not trust its own people,” he lamented.

“You want to develop the power sector. Who are your appointees? Do you call the professionals to sit down to say, this is it, gentlemen, what do we do?”

Abraham insisted that the government should look for the experts in the system and discuss the way forward with them, disclosing that CIPEN has written a lot of memos and papers stating its position without positive government response.

Most of the countries that are developed today trusted their professionals and believed in them to make their positive contributions, he stressed.

“So is the government trusting the power engineers to take over the power sector? If the government is doing that, then we will not say the responsibility is not on us.

“As it stands, we cannot take responsibility for what is not under our purview.

“We tell them this is what to do. They tell you they have their experts from  other countries.”

According to Abraham, the only way to solve the problem in the power sector is to challenge the owners of the system who are the professionals in the country.

“You challenge them to say, we want answers. And then they give you their terms. then you take the terms and work with them.”

He argued that power networks have to be domesticated localities so that people could access them.

“This is where renewable energy like  solar panels comes in as a way of stop gap measures where people can easily get that, especially in areas where  people do not have access to public supply.

“In some villages where you have  solar system, most of them will never worry about  being connected to the grid, they continue with their lives as they already have access to power.

“So while working on the major ones to bring power supply, those ones can serve as energy access to the people.”

Abraham disclosed that CIPEN is doing a lot by trying to collaborate  with  Ministries Agencies and Departments (MDAs) to see how the power sector could be improved.

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