Infrastructure burden clogs power sector development

Electricity acts as catalyst for economic development. Sadly, this eludes Nigeria as the attendant poor power supply continues to inhibit the growth of the virtually all sectors of the economy.

Efforts in the past by successive governments to stabilise the epileptic power system have failed due to lack of well co-ordinated plan of action and inherent corruption from the leaders despite billions of dollars the government claimed to have spent.

Across the length and breadth of the Nigeria, corporate establishments and small businesses suffer from poor electricity supply. To stay in business, factories and small businesses resort to generators as main source of power which eats into their profit margins.

The power sector of Nigeria for decades have been plagued by avalanche of hiccups that have trailed it. A cursory look at the sector attest to gross decadence in infrastructure, transmission, distribution capacity and liquidity crisis and lack of transparency have weigh sector down.

There are known cases where electricity distribution companies failed to provide pre-paid meters preferring to send estimated bills that infuriate electricity consumers.

Dolapo Oni Head, Energy Research, Ecobank Development Company (EDC) Nigeria Limited opines that government would always have to take the lead by making the business environment stable enough to attract investment in the sector to address the challenges in the power sector

Government need to ensure that the right tariff are set up and need to create regulation to support proper collection of tariff, criminalise power theft (illegal connection) so that people will pay for power. Give Nigerians the option of being able to switch to any source of power that they want to use”.

He further insists that government should enforce the roll out of meters. Discos should deliver meters to everybody. You can charge it over a period of time, but everybody should have proper meters. These are things government need to put in place.

“Transmission is still in the hand of government. They need to expand transmission capacity. Transmission should always lead generation. You cannot be generating 7,000 megawatts and be transmitting only 4,000”

“If government wants to privatise transmission they should go ahead. Most countries have moved away from this national grid structure. Most countries have their grids broken down into several segments so that you can have a northeastern grid and various grid connections. That is what we need to start exploring the idea of breaking down the grid and making sure that it works”. He said.

According to industry watchers, the power sector value chain is interconnected, “if there is disruption in on part it cascades across the whole sector. Problems with electricity generation impact on distribution and in turn distribution collection losses, which undermines the financial well-being of all market participants.

“Building new generation capacity is not sufficient as it needs to be supported by adequate and stable upstream gas supply, and it also needs to be underpinned by additional transmission capacity” they noted.

KELECHI EWUZIE