Minister of Power Adebyo Adelabu and Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) gave divergent reasons for continuous power outages in homes and offices.
While the minister said it is due to negligence, DisCos blame it all on low generation.
Adelabu urged the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and DisCos to improve power supply to consumers.
He wondered why power supply which was stable in December suddenly dipped.
According to him, negligence and not sabotage of equipment is responsible for outages.
He spoke after meeting with officials of TCN, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC).
“It seems you people have not bought into the (prescribed) solutions. November/December power supply improved across the nation that we were celebrating.
“We entered the year, everything changed. It is not sabotage but sheer negligence,” Baba Mustafa, the ministry’s Director of Distribution, quoted the minister as saying.
Adelabu, according to Mustafa, challenged them to identify what led to the decline in power supply and to take advantage of low hanging fruits in their franchise areas to improve distribution in the next few weeks.
“At the meeting, we identified the low-hanging fruits that when utilised can lead to improved power supply. The DisCos, especially, have agreed to take advantage of them (hanging fruits) to improve power supply in the next couple of weeks.
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“We have been given a marching order. And those problems that jeopardise the supply of power, especially in Abuja or reduce the supply will be addressed. People will see an improvement.”
IBEDC Chief Executive Officer Kingsley Achife said his firm and the AEDC gave themselves about three to six months to identify the easiest ways in the areas to deliver power to the customers.
He said: “ We have given ourselves a timeline of about a quarter: three to six months for each person to bring up the low hanging fruits in his areas and solve it and then work cooperatively with them to ensure there is seamless flow of customers in those areas, especially the areas which the complaints are coming from.”
Achife pointed out that low generation had been responsible for the outages currently been experienced by consumers.
He said the only way to address the challenge was for the DisCos to work in partnership with the TCN.
He added: “We have had a candid discussion and look without blaming anybody for the various challenges we have in our networks.
“ And from these challenges, we have been able to reach one conclusion. One way to solve it is to work together in partnership with our TCN partner, which is the main institution that gives us most of the power to distribute.
“We have looked at the areas where there have been issues and the problem they cause our customers .
“And of course, there is also the question of the challenge of the amount of power that is released in the system which has affected our expectation.”
Also, AEDC Acting Managing Director Victor Ojelani said they explained to Adelabu that the drop in supply from January this year was beyond their control.
Ojelani said they informed the minister that low generation was accountable for their reduced supply to customers.
The AEDC boss cited instances of allocation that was 588MW in December.
He said his company’s allocation that would have been 611MW in line with the January 2024 Multi -Year Tariff Order (MYTO) dipped to 561MW with a shortfall of 50MW.
Ojelani added that last month, there was a deficit of 147MW as only 464MW was allocated to the firm.
He said: “During the meeting we were able to explain to the minister what has caused the sudden drop in supply by us which is beyond us. Those were explained generally by low generation, which necessitated low allocation to the AEDC and IBEDC.
“We gave statistics. For instance, for AEDC 2024 Allocation MYTO MW 611. In January I got 561. There is a deficit of 50MW. This was worsened in February, I got 464MW which gave a shortfall of 147MW. That is not available for our customers.”
He however noted that the TCN was already working to address the constraints from its own end.
According to him, the minister assured them that the Federal Government was working hard to bridge the metering gap in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) soon.
Ojelani said there is also the plan by the government for each DisCo to identify vulnerable areas, where it needs government to intervene so that it can provide transformers free of charge to the DisCos on behalf of the citizenry.
He said the minister wants all the value chain to work together for progress in the industry.
Ojelani said: “From the DisCos side we will address any issue that comes up. From the TCN, you heard him speak yesterday, generation will be increased to 6,000MW within a short period.
“So, the TCN is ready to receive it. The DisCos are ready to evacuate it and put smile on our customers. Very soon the narrative will change and we will put smile on our customers.”
