Presidency meets power firms over electricity crisis

It was gathered that the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Abba Kyari, had a meeting with the Discos last week, before the presidential inauguration, and the previous week, with representatives of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, the Bureau of Public Enterprises and the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc in attendance.

Our correspondent learnt that the meetings were aimed at resolving the liquidity crisis in the sector and improving service delivery by the Discos.

The meeting examined power distribution projects that the German government could help the Discos with.

More than five years after the privatisation of the sector, the investors who took over the six generation companies and 11 Discos that emerged after the unbundling of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria are still grappling with the old problems in the sector.

The sector is plagued with problems of gas supply shortages, limited distribution networks, limited transmission line capacity, huge metering gap, electricity theft, and high technical and commercial losses, among others.

Total power generation stood at 3337.2 megawatts as of 6.00am on Wednesday, down from 3,737.4MW on Tuesday, according to data from the Nigeria Electricity System Operator, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.

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“The Chief of Staff to the President has met the Discos and they (government) are developing their own blueprint to solve the problem. They have met with us and have come up with some government-to-government arrangements whereby the government of Germany can help us, as distribution companies, in terms of providing equipment and the rest of them. We are waiting for how that will pan out,” an industry official told our correspondent on Wednesday.

The Federal Government, in March 2017, launched the Power Sector Recovery Programme with the major highlight being a Central Bank of Nigeria-funded payment assurance guarantee for two years to the tune of N701bn. The fund, which was expected to cover the shortfalls of NBET, was targeted at Gencos and gas suppliers for power generated and future power generation.