Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has announced the federal government’s initiative to ramp up power generation from 4,000 megawatts to 6,000 by the end of 2024, aiming to enhance electricity provision.
Adelabu disclosed this during a visit by the Senate Committee on Power to the ministry in Abuja on Monday.
The plan entails leveraging hydro and solar plants to achieve the targeted increase, addressing the current shortfall where the highest electricity generated stands at only 5,800 megawatts, which Adelabu described as unfortunate and concerning.
“The infrastructure are lying there, without adequate maintenance, the turbines are getting rust.
”With proper investment put in place, we can generate 6,000 megawatts before the end of 2024,” he said.
The minister also said that the federal government was also going to transform the Electricity Distribution Companies, (DisCos) adding that they were the last mile in the power supply industry.
According to him, if they don’t perform, it means the entire power sector is not performing.
“We are putting pressure on the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to ensure that the DisCos sit up, and if they have to withdraw their licenses for not performing, why not?
“We are unbundling the DisCos along state lines as some of them are too big for efficiency and effectiveness.
“Some of them are serving so many states, so we are rearranging and restricting the DisCos along state lines so that each state government will know the distribution company responsible for their states,” he said.
The minister said it was time the federal and state governments start exercising their rights in the management and operations of the power sector.
“We have left it for the private sector for too long and they have messed it up.
“We also plan to franchise the DisCos so that we can have smaller DisCos that are ready to invest,” he said.
Earlier, Sen. Eyinnaya Abaribe, chairman of the committee, said they were in the ministry for an oversight function.
Mr Abaribe said that the oversight visit became necessary to find out the challenges that have led to the poor supply of electricity to Nigerians and also the reasons for the consistent collapses of the national grid.
He said the committee in pursuant to the rules and regulations of the National Assembly had already invited the ministry of power and its parastatals for an investigative hearing on the increase in tariff by April 29.
Mr Abaribe said, “This is with regards to payment for power by Nigerians, so we won’t want to discuss that before the date.”
“The committee has already invited the minister and his agencies to discuss the issue of increase in tariff extensively with the committee.”
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