$10bn is required yearly for 10 years to fix power sector — FG

VANGUARD

ABUJA- The Federal government has emphasised that for the power sector to operate at peak performance, an annual investment of $10 billion is imperative, just as it also disclosed that the country would allocate N2.9 trillion to achieve full sector subsidy.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja at a one-day investigative hearing on halting the new electricity tariff increase by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for onward implementation by the Distribution Companies (DisCos), the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu said that the 10 billion dollars was needed annually in the next ten years to revive the nation’s power sector and end the liquidity challenge.

This is as Senators have called on the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, to as a matter of urgency, reverse the recent decision to increase electricity tariff for band A customers in the country.

The investigative hearing by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, APGA, Abia South led Senate Committee on Power is also about the N2.9tn required for electricity subsidy payment, other debts owed in the sector, and the state of metering in the country as well as the $1.3 billion owed gas companies even as it asked why Nigerians were suddenly classified under various bands.

The Minister told the Senate Committee that the major challenge in the sector was absence of liquidity, saying that the sector has been operating on a subsidised tariff regime,given the absence of a cost-reflective tariff, just as he stressed the subsidy had not been funded over the years as huge liabilities was been owned the Generating Companies ( GenCos) and the Gas Companies.

Adelabu who noted that the inability of the government to pay the outstanding N2.9 trillion subsidy was due to limited resources, hence the need to evolve measures to sustain the sector, however, pleaded with the Senators to support the process of paying the debt owed operators across the value chain of generation transmission and distribution.

According to him, the increase was based on supply and that any customer that do not receive 20 hours power supply will not be made to pay the new tarrif, adding that the government was committed to ensuring sustainable reform in the sector, even as he told the Senate that eight million meters would be acquired in the next four years.

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