BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Power
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The federal government is blaming the worsening electricity supply situation in the country to the activities of pipelines vandals as power generation drops to 2,800MW from the peak of 5000MW in February
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Mar 14, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
ONE month after the federal government approved more than 45 percent increase in the electricity tariff, the power generation in the country has dropped to 2,800 megawatts. Statistics from the Presidential Task Force on Power, PTFP, for February 25, 2016, indicates that the peak generation was as low as 3,800mw with an average of 3,531 megawatts per hour mwh/h.
It attained a peak of 5,074mw on February 3, shortly after the tariff hike. Experts said the implication of the decline in generation directly affects power supply. Even with the two days rationing being practised since November 2015 in many parts of the country, Realnews observed that power supply has fallen below 10 hours in major cities and it is zero power supply in other areas for a day or two in February.
But the federal government has insisted that incidences of vandalism on the gas pipelines led to drastic reduction in peak power supply through the national grid from more than 5,000 megawatts to less than 2,800 megawatts. Anthony Akah, acting chief executive officer, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, made the remarks during the signing of Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with the Consumer Protection Council, CPC.
Akah solicited support of members of the public and the council to collaborate with the service providers and security agencies to ensure security of electrical installations. He, however, said that the commission would soon compel electricity distribution companies to publish their meter deployment schedules to ensure adherence to the meter roll out plan contained in the performance agreement signed with government by the utility firms. According to him, “such publication will make unmetered customers to be aware of the estimated period they have to wait before they can be metered.” Akah said the commission has issued a non-tolerance statement on wrongful estimated bills, compelling customers to buy, install and repair transformers, poles, unsafe electrical connections and other unsafe practices by the electricity distribution companies.
He reiterated the commission’s commitment to ensure that operators in the sector strictly comply with NERC’s regulations. He said the collaboration between NERC and CPC was part of concerted efforts aimed at reducing the incidence of estimated billing and eliminating them completely. He lamented increasing spate of vandalism of electrical installation, electricity theft and other unwholesome acts by electricity consumers. Commenting on past collaboration between the two organisations, Akah said that such partnership needed to be strengthened as NERC perfected plan to put electricity distribution companies under commitment to fulfil their service level agreements.
Earlier, Modupe Atoki, director general, CPC, commended the long standing relationship between the two agencies even as she encouraged others agencies to emulate collaboration between CPC and NERC. “It could be debilitating whenever any agency of government refuses to collaborate with the CPC on consumer issue. It is the consumers that suffer at the end of the day,” she said. Atoki commended the council’s renewed effort of NERC to protect electricity consumers from abuse of their rights.
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