Why I resigned as minister of power is that I insisted that DISCOs should have technical expertise & financial independence —Professor Barth Nnaji

Barth Nnaji, chairman and main proponent of Geometric Power, Aba, has revealed why he resigned as Minister of power during the Jonathan administration.

Speaking to BBC Igbo, Nnaji said he resigned over what happened during the privatisation process. According to him, he had insisted that all DISCOS must have two things, technical expertise and financial independence to operate, so as to weed out those who wanted to use Privatisation to make quick money.

However, enormous pressure was put on him to change this policy and he could see that harm might be done to him if he didn’t, so he resigned. He regretted that after he left, many of the DISCOS eventually failed due to lack of technical expertise, and the banks they borrowed money from took over the assets

When asked if he was once offered a bribe of a Prado Jeep, Bart Nnaji laughed and said that he had already invested 500 million Dollars in Geometrics before he became Minister and that if he wanted to buy 100 Prado Jeeps today, he could do it.

He also said that Geometric Power was initially supposed to start in 2013 but court battles delayed the Project by 10 years. He also revealed that unlike other Power companies, the power generated by Geometric power would not go to the national grid, but go to Aba and 9 other local governments in Abia state as a start.

Source: BBC News