Jerry Agba, the Minister of State for Power has said that the challenges associated with power shortages in the country is as a result of gas supply issues with Generation Companies (GENCOS).
The Minister disclosed this shortly after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said that negotiations are on with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPC Ltd) to augment gas supplies to distributors at local rate.
His remark came on the backdrop of power shortages being experienced in the country despite billions of naira injected into the sector by the outgoing administration.
Agba said that with the interventions being put in place, power stability would be achieved in a few days.
“You’ll agree with me that of late, we’ve had problems with gas supplies for generating companies. We just negotiated with the gas supply companies, NNPC limited to augment gas supplies to distributors at the going local rate.
“Gas was sold to them at export rate, which price differs and the collection is made on domestic rates. So there was a differential and the argument, however, we had an agreement with the NNPCL and Natural Gas Company to supply gas to GENCOs commencing from last week, and they are buying at local price not at the export price.
“So with that we hope in the very near future in a week or two weeks we should have improved generation and supply. Distribution is going to be done by DISCOs which is why we are doing everything possible for the Transmission Company to have all the equipment necessary for effective transmission. We hope and I assure you that power generation and distribution will improve despite the rains that have come in now,” he noted.
In the second memo presented before FEC, the Minister noted that an approval was given for the award of contract for the procurement of telephone numbers of 33 KV circuit breakers and 120 numbers of surge arresters for systems use for Transmission Company of Nigeria.
He assured that the government is still committed to providing improved services on electricity to Nigerians.
He said, “TCN is the main body that has to do the transmission. You know generation and distribution are in private hands now, so the government is only responsible for transmission.
“Most of the equipment has become obsolete over the years which is why you have breaking transmissions, low power outages, low power supplies and outages here and there,” he said.
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