Guardian

THE Ministry of Power has opted to shop for an intervention fund to revamp the country’s ailing power plants before the final handover to the new owners in July.

The fund raising strategy was informed by the fact that the country’s power generation and transmission was not included in the 2013 budget, which was passed into law recently by the government.

Government had said that the country would need $10 billion investment in the power sector in the next 10 years to boost supply and transmission in the sector,

The Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo, who made this disclosure on Tuesday at Egbin Power plant in an interview with journalists, attributed the fund paucity crisis assailing power sector to the inability of the government to conclude privatisation of power firms by December 2012.

“We thought that by December 2012, the whole privatization exercise would have been completed.  But is was unfortunate that we missed the deadline on privatization of the power plants and this has resulted to shortage of funds for repairs and maintenance of the power stations”.

He said that the government would ensure that the new owners of the power firms put up for sale do not inherit liability but assets.

According to him, the country’s power plants were facing the challenge of fund paucity to effect repairs on some of them, leading to major system collapse, adding that this has really affected the power generation and distribution in the country.

He said that the government would ensure that the power outages currently being experienced in the country, are finally brought to rest.

Nebo pointed out that the government had undertaken various rehabilitation projects in various parts of the country and was looking to achieve an installed capacity of power generation of 10,000 by 2014.

“At about the first quarter of 2014, we will have an installed capacity to product 10,000 megawatts. The president just commissioned various power projects that we expect to double power supply and the ultimate target is that by 2020 we will have 40,000 megawatts.

“I can tell you that the government has done a lot to improve power supply. Before the president took office Nigeria was still battling with 2000 megawatts, but today we generate over 4000 megawatts and within a year we will go to 10,000 and more Independent Power projects are coming on board, and all the NIPP projects will be sold”, he added.

He also disclosed that Federal Government has pledged to complete the 1,994 abandoned rural electrification projects across the country, which would be revived as part of President Goodluck Jonathan’s aspirations for the power sector.

According to him, 90 per cent of the projects were abandoned at their completion stage, adding that the situation signified a massive loss of resources to the nation.

“It was Jonathan that revived the agency and it has not only been revived, but government has ensured fund was pumped into it. Today, huge rural electrification projects have been advertised for completion.”

Nebo further stated that the government is still in the process of reviewing the electricity roadmap adding that the targets of the roadmap are still well on course.

“We are reviewing because some of the things that were on ground when the map was construed are no longer on ground. And that is why there must be a post privatization roadmap”, he added.