National grid collapse: Atiku proposes solutions to electricity problem

As Nigerians mentally prepare for days of electrical darkness, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has proposed a solution to the continued collapse of the national grid.

Atiku's light-bulbing idea is to have innovative financing of infrastructure in the power sector.

He said the financing would involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in the power sector.

In a post on his Facebook page, Atiku wrote: “I am reliably informed that there was a total National Grid Collapse at precisely 12:23pm today. This is one collapse too many. It is the 6th time this is happening this year alone.

“Due to the priority that I place on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, I am proposing innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.

“I’ll promote the incentivisation, with tax breaks, a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to primarily mobilise domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy.

“The IDF will have an initial investment capacity of approximately US$20 billion. In addition, I’ll cause the creation of an Infrastructure Development Credit Guarantee Agency to complement the operation of the IDF by de-risking investments in infrastructure to build investor confidence in taking risks and investing capital.”

For anyone who cares to know, Nigeria already has various tax incentives that basically do not work, or are difficult to access.

Should Atiku be focusing on new tax incentives, to get more tax from more people, to fix the regular collapse of the grid? Is that a plan that could work?