NEWS DIGEST– In a one-day interaction session with journalists in Abuja, the Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, discussed the challenges and plans for the power sector in Nigeria. He emphasized the importance of restoring hope to electricity consumers and working towards economic growth.
Adelabu also addressed issues with Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) and license extensions, expressing the need for transparency and collaboration to move the sector forward.
“Small businesses, rural irrigation, cocktail businesses, and industries need the power to operate. We need to produce a significant portion of what we consume otherwise the currency of another country we use for international trade will be so important to you, so we need to move to local sufficiency and increase our local dependency to increase our incremental progress every year till we get to our desired destination,” he said.
While responding to a question on the operations of DisCos in Nigeria, the Minister disclosed that the Nigeria government may not be able to revisit the contract at the moment but it is working on territorial coverage by creating mini-DISCO for some States in the federation for efficient coverage to serve consumer’s needs.
He also called on State governments to work and collaborate with the DISCOs in their various States by playing more roles and investing in the power sector through the DISCO.
The Minister further stated that the Ministry will dialogue with DISCO to deliberate on the best way to move the sector forward.
Read Also:
According to him, the Nigerian government is not ready to increase the electricity tariff.
“It is not politically expedient and reasonable to implement a tariff that is doubling the existing tariff because part of the reason for an escalated tariff is because the cost of gas today is still done in dollars and today 75 to 80 percent of our power generation comes from gas power when there is an upward movement in the exchange rate it affects the tariff.”
On the issue of license extension for DISCOs, the Minister said he has ordered an investigation into the extension by five years.
“When I came in, the licenses I saw were for 10 years, 2013 to 2023. But along the line I spoke to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC Chairman, and he said, the licenses have been extended for another five years.”
“We are trying to review the correctness of that. We have ordered an investigation into the extension of the licenses if they are actually in order,” he said.
The Minister said he doesn’t believe that privatization of the power sector assets infrastructures was the way to go about the power sector, declaring that commercialization could have been better as it required huge financial investment outlay which the private sector may afford or may not be willing to commit because its long term returns yields.
According to him, the government needs to review the structures of DisCos with regards to streamlining covered that which the Minister observed is too large for each of the DisCos to manage effectively.
Adelabu also appealed to Journalists for a more transparent reportage on the activities of the ministry.
