The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, has said over 50 per cent of electricity consumers in Nigeria are still not metered by the electricity distribution companies.
Nebo described the development as a challenge to the power sector.
He spoke at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Power while receiving a Brazilian delegation led by Vice-Minister of Development, Industry and International Trade, Ricardo Shaefer.
The minister, according to a statement from the ministry on Wednesday, said, “In a privatised electricity market, would-be investors will be scared as this may translate to their inability to recoup their investment.”
There is a high number of unmetered power consumers in the country despite the yearly increases in the tariff of electricity by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, a development that had received criticisms from consumers, civil society organisations and labour unions.
Although NERC had stated that metering would not be achieved speedily, it had always given an assurance that the government was working hard with the electricity distribution companies to ensure that more electricity consumers were issued metres.
Nebo, however, said that the Federal Government was prepared to revamp the ailing power sector with assistance from around the world.
He said synergy and cooperation with Brazil would boost Nigeria’s quest to ensure that all its nationals were connected to electricity.
He said, “Brazil has not penetrated enough into our ongoing sales of power assets. We are prepared to link you with Nigerian partners so that we can benefit from your expertise in generation, distribution, technology access and capacity building.”
Nebo said Brazil had done well in many aspects of electricity, especially in big hydro, biomass, solar, wind and coal to power.
He said Nigeria intended to learn from the experience of Brazil, as the country earnestly hoped to attain its development goals.
On rural electrification, Nebo said the leadership shown by Brazil to other Third World countries had provided a ray of hope that soon, Nigeria would overcome its developmental challenges.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Godknows Igali, said opportunities in the power sector were huge.
According to him, the nation’s target of moving from 4,000 megawatts of electricity to 40,000MW in the next seven years will require double efforts from Nigeria’s friends abroad.
Igali explained that the sector had opportunities in the planned expansion of generation capacity, adding that this would attract specialised companies interested in cables, switches and transformers.
He said, “We are interested in Brazil. We want to share from the knowledge and experience of Brazil in the reform process and training of our young engineers.”
Punch
No comments:
Post a Comment