The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatude Fashola attributes the nation’s poor and irregular power supply to instability on the na...
The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatude Fashola attributes the nation’s poor and irregular power supply to instability on the national grid.
While addressing journalist at the Federal Executive Council, he stated that Nigeria is currently generating less than 3000 megawatts (MW) of power.
He highlighted the following as factors leading to instability;
Firstly, sabotage of critical oil and gas platforms in the western axis of the Niger Delta affects the operations of Escravoa Lagos pipeline and Forcados export terminal. Which affected affects gas production, a fuel that power plants need.
Fire outbreaks at power stations have also contributed to the instability.
” while we were trying to start last week we had a fire in Afam and that affected the control room and these are normal engineering accidents that can happen, mechanical parts can break down, we also had another fire in Kainji. We have tried tovrepaor them over the last week while negotiations with the gas companies are on going” Fashola said.
The Minister stated that additional funds were approved by FEC on Wednesday for the completion of the Odogiyan transmission substation in Ikorodu. And to provide additional transformer capacity to 260MVA transformers and transmission lines of 132KVA. He has also been in talks with gas suppliers and figuring out ways of paying some debts.
Other approaches used in addressing irregular power supply were highlighted
“Until we resolve these behavioural issues: people collect money, are they remitting everything in a manner that is fair, even if it is not enough;, some people hold up their own share and they ask themselves ‘why should we continue to supply if we can’t get paid because there are bankers and financiers? So we are talking with everybody trying to resolve it.As at yesterday we were back to 2900 (megawatts), so we are building up back again and very soon you will see some stability. These are set backs on the road to incremental power but we will overcome them,” Mr. Fashola said.
Relent not Mr Minister, keep on working for an electrified Nigeria.
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