The
Federal Government has promised that power supply would be stable in
Nigeria from October this year. The Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo,
made promise while briefing journalists after a closed-door power
meeting, chaired by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the State House,
Abuja.
The administration has however failed to deliver on past
promises concerning electricity supply. The Minister who noted that
other issues in the electricity value chain were being addressed,
said
power supply had improved in the country in the past one week due to
improved gas supply.
“The cheering news from all of these is that
if you have noticed throughout the country in the past one week people
have been getting much better power supply. “The gas is now beginning to
come back and it’s something that gives all of us a lot of joy. “And we
know that it will continue to grow that way even until December because
now some of the facilities, maintenance, repair works on the gas
equipment and so on. “The gas producers have come to a place where
almost all of these is being taken care of, and then the new gas we are
expecting we have then trickling in right now. “So that part of the
shortfalls we’ve had in production up to this time, we hope that by the
beginning of October, we will see a much better stabilisation of the
entire power delivery system in the country.
“First, I would say
we rejoice that for the first time in a long time we have been averaging
over 4,500 MW when we include nearly 300 mw of spilling reserve which
is always put there to make sure that the reliability and stability of
the grid is ensured at all time", he said. He also noted that
the Federal Government is making arrangements to ensure that the bills
of electricity generating companies are promptly paid.
“The
generation companies have been complaining that they need to have all
their bills paid. “The good thing about this is that arrangements are
being made to make sure that all the generation companies get their
money as and when due. “We are working on that.
That is part of the meeting that was chaired by Mr Vice President.
“Next
thing is how far we have come with the issue of even settling the gas
question. The gas question has remained for quite a while. “But very
thankfully, the Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources and I, the
central bank governor and chairman of NERC met several times to address
those issues. “And that eventually ended in finding resources to take
care of the indebtedness of the generation companies to the gas
companies. “So once we take care of the backlog, we insist that the gas
companies will eventually produce more gas,’’ he said.
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