26 August 2012, Sweetcrude, ASABA – NIGERIA’s Minister of State for Power, Mr Dairus Ishaku, says the sector was working hard toward achieving stability in power supply for the country.
Ishaku made this known in Asaba on Friday at the opening ceremony of a power summit organised by the ministry for stakeholders in the sector.
The minister, who described the theme of the summit, `Stable Power Supply: The Path Toward Achieving System Reliability’ as apt, said the government had been working on reviving the nations’s power capacity and growing it to appreciable level.
But, he stated that besides the efforts at improving power supply, the government was also saddled with labour issue, for which he said President Goodluck Jonathan had set up a panel to look into all labour-related problems in the sector.
On the face-off between aggrieved staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, and the government, he said that the government felt the pains of the staff.
He emphasised that the greatest problem facing the staff was the fear of the unknown as well as accurate dissemination of information.
“It is expected that the higher the targeted number of mega watts to be generated, the higher the expected number of staff,” he said.
Ishaku also said that a lot of people had thought that PHCN was being sold but this was not so, noting: “we need expert in the power sector to help us
“Lot of people does not know that the sector has to be evacuated and it has to pass through transformation.”
Mrs Dere Awosika, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, said the sector had so far recovered about 958 mega watts of power.
Awosika said that the sector was committed to the delivery of improved and sustained power supply.
She explained that the aim of the summit was to look at issues pertinent in moving the sector forward as well as deliverables that would drive the sector through 2012 to 2013 target.
The permanent secretary affirmed that the sector was committed to delivering targets with results and highlighting private sector-driven process.
She stressed that this was with a view to looking at what was to be done, when, by who, as well as challenges to be encountered.
The permanent secretary also said that there was re-negotiation on PHCN plan on gas as well as energy invoice payments.
