{"id":2321,"date":"2021-10-08T11:20:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T11:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2021-10-08T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T14:11:50","slug":"bill-to-repeal-and-re-enact-the-electricity-act-2021-passes-second-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/bill-to-repeal-and-re-enact-the-electricity-act-2021-passes-second-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill to Repeal and Re-enact the Electricity Act 2021 Passes Second Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Bill to repeal the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 and enact the Electricity Act 2011 passed second reading at the Senate plenary on Tuesday, 28<sup>th<\/sup> September and was referred to the Committee on Power for further legislative action. It was read for the first time on 8<sup>th<\/sup> October 2020. The bill which is sponsored by Senator Gabriel Suswam (PDP, Benue) seeks to consolidate all legislations in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) and provide an omnibus Electricity Act, comprising the legal and institutional framework to guide the post-privatisation phase of Nigeria\u2019s power sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Making a case for the passage of the bill,\nSenator Suswam in his lead debate, noted that several challenges are inherent\nin the power sector despite the gains recorded by the reform of the sector\nbetween 2001-2013 under the extant law. Some of the challenges he identified\ninclude operational constraints that emerged after the privatisation exercise,\nwhich included the absence of cost-reflective tariffs, inadequate enumeration\nand metering of consumers, limited access to investment funds, poor revenue\ngeneration and tariff deficits, among others. These issues, he stated cannot be\nadequately addressed by the provisions of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act\n2005. He stated that several of these provisions are now redundant. They served\ntheir purpose during the reform exercise and are now inappropriate. According\nto him, another need for the re-enactment is to consolidate all legislations in\nthe power sector into one law, in order to align regulatory responsibilities\nand ensure clarity of statutory roles for ease of compliance with regulatory\nrequirements by operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If passed, the bill is expected to provide a\nframework for power diversification through the use of cleaner renewable energy\nsources, and to eliminate barriers to private sector investment across the\npower value chain and attract funding necessary to address the challenges\nconfronting the sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill comprises 213 clauses divided into 21\nparts numbered in roman numerals and five schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Part\nI&nbsp; states the objectives and application\nof the bill<\/li><li>Part\nII provides for the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic\nImplementation Plan<\/li><li>Part\nIII upholds the validity of the pre-privatisation and post-privatisation\nreform, and the powers of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC)<\/li><li>Part\nIV provides for the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN)\ninto a Transmission Service Provider and Independent System Operator in\naccordance with its licence. <\/li><li>Part\nVI \u2013 Licensing <\/li><li>Parts\nVII, VIII, IX, X \u2013 Electricity Generation, Electricity Transmission,\nElectricity Distribution and Electricity Tariffs, respectively. <\/li><li>Parts\nV and XV \u2013 The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Rural\nElectrification agency retain their roles as regulator and co-ordinator of\nrural electrification, respectively<\/li><li>Part\nXVII and Second Schedule \u2013 Consolidate and codify the two establishments Acts\nfor the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) and the\nHydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC)<\/li><li>Parts\nXII, XIII, XIV \u2013 Acquisition of land and Access to land by licensees, Consumer\nProtection and Licensee Performance Standards, Competition and Market Power,\nand the Power Consumer Assistance Fund, respectively<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill contains novel provisions such as\nthe establishment of the Electricity Disputes Appeal Tribunal under part XVIII,\ncomposed of judicial and technical members to resolve appeals from NERC\u2019s\ndecisions and other matters defined under the tribunal\u2019s jurisdiction. Part XVI\nrecognises renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the legal framework for\nthe power sector. Part XIX creates offences peculiar to the electricity\nindustry and prescribes punishments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill seeks to stimulate investments along\nthe power value chain from current licensees and non-licensees by providing\nstatutory recognition for electricity distribution franchising, independent\nelectricity distribution networks\/ independent electricity distribution\nnetworks operators and independent electricity transmission networks\/ independent\nelectricity transmission networks operators, and others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Bill to repeal the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 and enact the Electricity Act 2011 passed second reading at the Senate plenary on Tuesday, 28th September and was referred to the Committee on Power for further legislative action. It was read for the first time on 8th October 2020. The bill which is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2330,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/2330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}