The apex telecom industry association, ATCON, is hosting a one-day Stakeholders’ Summit on “The State of Energy & Power Sector: Implications for Telecoms Development In Nigeria”. The summit is slated to hold on Friday, August 24, 2007 in the Diamond Hall, Golden Gate Chinese Restaurants, Ikoyi, Lagos at 9.00am. The actual date will be confirmed shortly after the resumption of the Ministers in charge of Communications, Science & Technology as well as Energy and Power whose participation in the summit will be of paramount importance.
Energy and Power sector is undoubtedly a critical and very important sector in any developing economy because energy and power play enormous and vital roles in the socio-economic and industrial development of nations. It is simple logic that a vibrant and reliable energy and power sector promotes rapid and sustainable industrial development and boosts economic growth. On the other hand, a failed energy and power sector brings industrial doom, economic stagnation and depression to any nation.
Over the years, the state of the Nigerian Energy and Power Sector has been a source of endless worries to both the government and the governed. The situation has kept deteriorating from one regime to another. Governments have spent billions of Naira in this sector, yet succour has failed to come. The Obasanjo administration battled in the last eight years to effect a paradigm shift in the sector, but the huge investments in that sector failed to achieve any meaningful result. Instead, analysts insist that the situation grew from worse to worst. The burden of doing business in Nigeria with the epileptic energy and power situation has therefore increased tremendously, forcing many businesses to either operate below capacity or close shop.
ATCON’s Energy & Power Summit could not have come at better time than now that the Federal Government headed by President Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua and the relevant government agencies have shown greater concerns over the deteriorating state of energy and power provisioning in Nigeria. ATCON believes that this is the right time for all stakeholders in the various economic sectors to join hands in the onerous challenge of improving the state and level of energy and power supply in our country to ensure steady development and sustainable growth of the various sectors of our national economy.
In organising this summit, ATCON wishes to bring together players and stakeholders in the energy and power sector to brainstorm with their counterparts in the telecom sector on the state of our energy and power sector and the implications on telecoms development in Nigeria. The summit is expected to examine the ongoing reforms in the energy and power sector and review the challenges as well as the short and long term expectations of the reform agenda. Another focus of the summit is to identify viable alternative energy and power technologies and solutions that can support the operations of the telecom sector as well as other economic sectors. The summit will therefore give ample opportunities to providers of alternative energy and power technologies and solutions to showcase what they have specifically for players in the telecom sector in Nigeria.
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