I Know Nigerians Are Not Enjoying Quality Power Supply—Minister

By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel

The Minister of Power, Mr Abubakar Aliyu, has said he’s aware that Nigerians are not enjoying quality power supply, stating that efforts are being made to address this issue.

In a statement issued to mark his 50 days in office, Mr Aliyu said the service quality was making it difficult for the sector to grow as desired.

He stated that the quality of service such as hours of power supply, voltage, disputed or estimated bills, is less satisfying to many people but noted that the federal government has always had to provide financial support to cover the shortfall on payment made by consumers to distribution companies (DisCos) as it does not suffice for the full investment and costs of the generating companies (GenCos).

According to him, this has resulted to be a huge burden on the government which is unsustainable.

However, he disclosed that the federal government through the sector was committed to implementing its key power projects to give Nigerians more access to electricity.

These key projects to be completed, he said, are the Kashimbilla 40 MW Power Station in Taraba State which had already begun generating power for the National grid, and the Gurara Phase 2 project which is being implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Water Resources and is to deliver 30MW to the grid.

“The Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project is progressing towards completion next year, to deliver another 700MW of renewable power. Katsina wind farm, with a full capacity of 10MW, is already generating part of its full capacity for the grid.

“The first phase of the PPI is the upgrading and expansion of the vital infrastructure of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the Distribution Companies (Discos) with the goal of achieving the 7,000MW.

“This first phase had started in earnest this year with the ongoing pre-engineering phase,” Mr Aliyu disclosed.