The Nigerian government has signed an MoU with Siemens, the German electricity powerhouse, to improve the country’s power supply
After a Federal Executive Council, a weekly meeting of the Nigerian ministers on 18 February, Sule Mamman, Nigeria’s minister of power, expressed the government’s frustration with the state of electricity in the country. Around 13,000MW of electricity is generated daily, but only 3,000MW of that is distributed and gets used by the consumers.
He said, “We can generate up to 13,000MW but the transmission. Those who are taking the electricity supply can only take 7,000MW. Even at that, they are not taking the whole 7,000MW, but only 4,500MW and then send to distribution. The distribution, in turn, receives only 3,000MW. Because of the technical and commercial reasons, they cannot contain the whole power that has been generated.”
Mamman had sent his recommendation as to the minister in charge of power. “We have to correct the infrastructure. That is why I said that today. I submitted my observation to the council and I believe the government is on it. The distribution companies are the ones manning the distribution. That is why I have submitted my observations to the government. It is left for the government that will have to decide.”
“We just have to sit and see whether they are capable (distribution companies) and have the technical know-how because most of the problems we are having today are the loss – technical loss and commercial loss. They (distribution companies) will give you light and may not collect your money or they will collect the money and pocket, or they may send light and you may not have good sub-station that may collect this power and distribute to customers. This has been our major problem and it is the responsibility of the Distribution companies to take care of that end.”
According to Mamman, “They are to align between distribution and transmission and also generation. So, at the end of the day if we generate 13,000MW, the transmission will take the whole 13,000MW and will distribute the same. That way Nigerians will be happy and everyone will have 24/7 electricity supply.”
Sunday Oduntan, executive director in charge of research and advocacy for ANED, said that the association would not allow anyone takes over and wondered why the minister would contemplate such an action when the investors have a legal agreement with the federal government. “We have a legal agreement with the federal government and nobody will close his eyes and allow his US$2.4bn investments taken away.”
The eleven distribution companies had not been able to achieve the performance targets set for them by the government ever since and while the government expresses its frustration with the distribution companies, they on the other end had blamed the government for not keeping its own side of the bargain especially in the area of increase of tariffs.
