Mohammed Shosanya
The federal government has said that it will continue to subsidize electricity tariffs until such a time the government is convinced that there is incremental power supply.
Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu,who disclosed this during a parley with the Power Correspondents in Abuja,added tariffs could have been increased months back but President Ahmed Bola Tinubu did not approve it.
He also hinted that the time is not yet right for implementation of cost reflective tariffs in Nigeria.
He said he doesn’t believe that privatization of the power sector assets infrastructures was the way to go, and declared that commercialisation could have been better as the required huge financial investment outlay which the private sector may be afford, or may not be willing to commit because its long term returns yields.
According to him, government may need to review the structures of DisCos with regards to streamlining the areas of coverages which the Minister observed are too large for each of the DisCos to manage effectively.
He said he took time to study the sector with a view to finding out why his predecessors who brilliant in all sense, failed short of delivering to the expectations of Nigerian.
According to him, previous Minister’s of power did not actualize their plans of improving power situations of the country because they approached the issues of solving the power problem from top to down, stressing that in his tenure the reverse would be the case as he intends to tackle it from down to top.
He described as shameful the fact that Nigeria has stagnated around 4000MW generation over the last years, and disclosed that plans have been concluded to organize a Power Sector Retreat between 12th and 14th December 2023, which shall produce a workable Roadmap for the sector.
He said that Nigeria generate upward of about 50,000MW of electricity, but 95 percent of it is through combined diesel and petrol home generators, adding that the people would not have problem with tariffs increase so long as there is incremental power supply.
He implored states to take advantage of the reformed power sector Act and invest in distribution companies within their states, utilizing existing power lines instead of creating entirely new power infrastructures.