Billing transparency, job creation…Minister pledges, as he marks 50 days in office

The Minister of Power, Mr. Abubakar Aliyu,has pledged to focus on achieving billing transparency and accuracy,and wider access to electricity;job creation, improved services in terms of hours of supply, creation of liquidity in the electricity market; restoration of consumer, operator and investors’ confidence to the sector; attraction of foreign and local investment into the sector and promotion of competition and invitation of more participants in theNigerian Electricity Market (NEM). These, he said would be through effective policy and regulation and cooperative engagement withprivate and public sector operators.

He made this known in a statement released to mark his fifty days in office, following hisredeployment from his former office as the minister of state, works and housingto replace theformer sacked helmsman, Mr Saleh Mamman.

The minister noted that the key policies and initiatives of the Ministry to achieve the outlined aims are; the accelerated progress and completion of key projects of the Ministry and its partners, especially; the Kashimbilla 40MW power station, which has already startedgenerating power into the National Grid, the almost-ready Gurara phase 2 being developed in partnership with Ministry of Water Resources; projected to deliver 30MW to the grid and the Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project; projected to deliver another 700MW of renewablepower.

Others are the Katsina Wind farm, with a full capacity of 10MW, the Dadin Kowa 40MW power station, the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project; contracted in2017 and the TCN’s Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program.

He pointed that discussions were being intensified to ensure that projects with grey areas are addressed and allencumbrances preventing full take off of a few of themareresolved soon.

Another key policy instituted as reeled out by the Minister is the systematicimplementation of the Presidential PowerInitiative (PPI) of the present administration.

He recalled that Siemens Nigeria and theFederal Government in 2020 entered into a PowerInfrastructure revamp agreement, highlighting that the first phase of the project was the upgrading and expansion of the vital infrastructure of the TCN and Discos with the end goal of achieving 7,000MW.

This phase, he said started in earnest this year, with the ongoing pre-engineering phase, hinting that the selected EPC Contractors will soon be contracted officially to enable them commence work on the project implementation.

Apart from the above, another initiative cited was the reinvigoration of some important policies and regulations.Among them are the Eligible Customer and related regulations, which allows consumers contract for better services directly with willing GenCos and service providers that are ready to make new investment to deliver better services. Another is the Meter Asset Provider program; which attracts investors into metering. Then, the Mini-grid policy and regulation, which allows underserved consumers to partner with investors and contractors to get better services. 

The minister equally touched on the optimization of the available generation capacity and its effective use. He explained that theyshall ensure the judicious use of the unutilized capacity, in line with the Ministry’s incremental power focus and the Eligible Customer policy.

The last of the initiatives enumerated in the statement was strengthening the regulator to ensure that all sector players and stakeholders work according tothe rules and guidelines, especially in dealing with customers.

Notwithstanding these objectives and plans, the minister acknowledged that the bane of the sector remained service quality; in terms of disputed/estimated bills, or access to electricityand sector illiquidity.

He however expressed optimismat seeing some of the lingering challenges in the sector being addressed in a Methodical, systematic, andProactive manner.

In his words, “We are working tirelessly as we explore opportunities that will, inthe short term, deliver the much-desired quick wins whilst stillfocusing on the long-term objectives of increasing the available power, improving the quality of services, attracting the much-needed investment, promoting efficiency, competition and growth and lastly ensuring transparency and accountability in the valuechain of the Power Sector”.

He also disclosed that the Ministry was intensifying performance monitoring of the licensees and the licensing regime, particularly as it concerns their revised Performance Improvement Plans (PIP), to have a better understanding of why some critical stakeholders are performing below expectation. 

“We shall be taking a careful and detailed look at issues of policy,capacity and the technical requirement, amongst other things.

One very critical concern that we must address in this performance monitoring process is to find out if the terms for granting of licenses were onerous.

These are some of the critical concerns that the performance monitoring will highlight. The outcomes will also hopefully point at ways to address these concerns and challenges”, he submitted.         

Additionally, he said the ministry was working on the full implementation of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of March 2005,to match up with the huge sums invested by this administration towards realizing its objectives in the sector.

“Hopefully, we will soon begin to experience the imminent turnaround in the power sector”, he assured.