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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, charged the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman to ensure that electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) are sanctione er poor electricity supply across the country.
The House said apart from poor supply, there Discos are exploiting electricity consumers across the country and must not be allowed to go scot-free.
The chairman, House Committee on Power, Magaji Da’u Aliyu gave the charge, when the minister appeared before the committee to defend the 2021 budget estimates of his ministry.
Aliyu , who stated that Nigerians are wondering if the power situation in the country, was not better under the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), said the Discos must not be allowed to get away with the poor services they are providing to electricity consumers nationwide.
“The only person we know , the Honourable Minister, is you . Please sanction the discos. Punish them. If you do that you will be our darling and the darling of Nigerians also. We don’t know whether we were better under PHCN,” the lawmaker stated.
However, Mamman said the major problem with poor supply in the country is an alignment between distribution and transmission. He stated that it is in bid to address the challenge, that the federal government signed a pact with Siemens.
The minister expressed optimism that with the pact with with Siemens the challenge would a thing of the best soon.
According to him, “the problem we are facing is mainly alignment. I want to tell you that there is a plan ongoing, there is a PPA that has now been initiated.
“The Siemens from Germany they are coming to align distribution to transmission. The major problem here is alignment. We are taking care of that”.
Mamman disclosed that the country’s installed grid power generation capacity is now 13,000mw from the 8,000mw that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration inherited in 2015.
He added that the that transmission capacity has also increased to 8,000mw from 5,000 in 2015, while the distribution system have the capacity to evacuate 5,500mw of power having grown from 4,500mw in 2015.
