24 November 2014, Abuja – The Federal Government may have failed to meet its target of generating 5,000mw of electricity by year end.
Barely 37 days to end the year, the government is generating only 3,750.73megawatts.
It is unable to fully distribute all of it as 79mw is “stranded”. Reason? The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) cannot wheel it to the energy distribution companies.
The Federal Government on August 2 reduced its former target of producing 6,000MW by December to 5,000MW. It also announced an increase in gas prices.
Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who announced the target, also noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would pay the N25 billion owed to gas suppliers.
Figures from the Federal Ministry of Power as at November 19 were a far cry from the target.
The ministry noted that of the 3,750.73MW generated , 79MW was “stranded”.
Following the statistics, the peak power generation in the electricity market as at November 19 was 3,958.1 MW. Peak demand forecast was 12,800MW.
The data also maintained that the highest peak power generation ever recorded by the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry is 4,517.6 MW on December 23, 2013.
The TCN, which evacuates power from the generation company to the distribution companies, seems to have maintained less than 3,700MW capacity, although it claims to have 6,000MW capacity.
The TCN also has a target of 10,000MW for this year.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) last week announced that electricity tariff would rise by December 1. The announcement has unsettled many consumers because power supply is abysmal.
Reacting to the announcement, the Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said: “The NERC, like an agency under a corrupt system, is covered by the law, which was abinitio tailored to suit the tenant instead of the children of the landlord.”
He raised questions whether the commission will ever approve a drop in electricity. “Otherwise, why is it that we will never experience down sizing of the tarrif, but upward review, regardless of poor electricity supply?
“Today, it is being jacked up because of the increase in the international price of gas and tomorrow another reason for increase like rate of inflation will be adduced as the reason for upward review of the tariff,” Okechukwu said, adding:
“It is a vicious crisis and theatre of absurd symptomatic of an economy, whose managers are either in self-denial or deliberately out to short change the citizenry.
“In sum, how do we explain that penultimate week N213 billion was pumped into this drain from public fund and the same citizenry that own the state owned enterprise privatised are not only being taxed, but cannot point to any project the money realised from the sale was used for.”
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) also yesterday rejected further increase in electricity tariff in the face of low power supply.
Speaking with The Nation on telephone, the congress’ Information Officer, Comrade Benson Upah, said: “At the moment, there is no correlation between tariff paid by the consumers and the services rendered.”
– The Nation
