Technocrat Media, Abuja
The lower chamber of the national assembly has tackled the ministry of power over outages across the country.
Magaji Aliyu, chairman of house committee on power, expressed displeasure with the ministry in Abuja on Tuesday.
The permanent secretary of the ministry, Mr Nebeolisa Anako, appeared before it during an interactive session according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
Mr Aliyu said Nigerians are currently experiencing one of the worst moments of electricity supply across the country.
He said the development has caused a variety of problems affecting peoples’ welfare which makes the social living condition very uncomfortable.
Mr Aliyu added that it had also caused the collapse of small businesses whose operations depend on stable electricity supply.
He stated that the situation had aggravated increased process in commodities and services for those who required electricity supply.
The legislator asked the ministry to also explain the technical, operational, and administrative measures taken to address the challenge and its devastating consequences on Nigerians.
“In this country, there is no fuel, no light, and no gas. We were told we have 30,000 megawatts, but that only transmission is our problem. My heart bleeds for this country, we may never have it right maybe during our time,” he lamented.
He said that the permanent secretary only presented a thesis rather than proffering a solution to the mirage of the electricity problem bedeviling the country.
A member of the committee, Ajibola Muraina (PDP-Oyo) said the problem of the power outage was not just starting now, adding that every year there is usually a shortage of water, without measure to correct it.
He added that the country’s inability to power light via gas was uncalled for, adding that the ministry is always adopting a fire brigade approach, which will not work.
“I think we are not prepared to give Nigerians power. In my constituency, no light; they only bring it when they want to bring bill,” he said.
Another member, Sada Soli from Katsina: “I don’t think the ministry of power is in charge because they don’t see it as their responsibility to deliver power to Nigerians.
Another lawmaker from Imo, Mariam Onoha in her contribution stated that “I want to assume that there are some levels of conspiracy of bringing the government down as we approach the electioneering year.”
She queried why critical infrastructure would be about to run down when the country is approaching an election year.
The permanent secretary on his part said that the ministry had a lot of issues in the Nigeria electricity supply crisis, adding that it’s working to resolve them.
He said that in spite of improvements in power generation to a peak of 5,800MW last year, and an average available generation of 5,000MW, recent events had seen a temporary crash in generation by about 1,600MW.
He said that the loss is now gradually being recovered as the situation is stabilised to better serve the growing power demand in the country.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria has said it has disbursed over 1.3 trillion naira in the last five years for power projects.
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May 8, 2023 at 5:46 pm
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