Journal of Administrative Sciences and Policy Studies

Electricity Supply and National Transformation Agenda: The Nigeria Experience, 1980-2012
Bright Onoriode Ohwofasa, Abiola Adeola Kumapayi

Abstract
Over the past three decades or so, Nigeria has been confronted with deep-seated socioeconomic crisis evident in high level of poverty, inflation, closure of industries, budget deficit, absolute lack of good governance at all level, environmental degradation, high unemployment and epileptic power supply among others. At the start of the century, there was high hope among Nigerians that the emergence of democracy and the increasing global capitalist markets feasible in the oil and telecommunication sectors will result in high level of accelerated development. The focus of this paper is whether the huge expenditure made yearly in the power sector has translated into greater electricity generation. The study which has three objectives examines what impact annual government expenditure in the power sector has on electricity supply. It also scrutinizes the impact of electricity supply on two indexes of growth, namely the real GDP, a proxy for economic growth and index of industrial production for the period 1980 -2012. The econometric methodology is basically co-integration and parsimonious error correction model. Results show that long run relationship exists between the dependent and the independent variables employed in the study. The short run results reveal that while recurrent expenditure exerts positive impact on electricity generation, the reverse is the case between the later and capital expenditure in the power sector. It was also discovered that mega watts of electricity generation which is the variable of interest exerts positive influence on real GDP and negatively impacted on index of industrial production all of which are statistically insignificant. The paper recommended that corruption prevalent in the power sector must be checked, official found to have diverted money meant for given project should be punished while the right technology and expertise engaged.

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