Electricity: Aliyu proposes N301.258bn in the power sector for 2022 fiscal year.
The Minister of Power, Hon. Abubakar Aliyu has tendered his Budget proposal with a total sum of N301.258bn will be for the ministry and parastatals in the power sector for the 2022 fiscal year.
The Minister made this known on Thursday, in the Presence of the House committee on Power at the National Assembly for the 2022 Joint Budget Defence for all power sectors and also performance defense for 2021.
He also added that machinery had been put in place to ensure efficient implementation of the 2022 budget.The Minister also noted that a national Programme had also been launched to provide an alternative power supply for strategic Federal Government buildings and military formations, using renewable energy, particularly solar photovoltaic.
The House Committee on power emphasized on the low performance of N176.721bn appropriated for capital projects in the sector, out of which only N43.240bn had been released so far, while N32.518bn had been spent.They also questioned the hostilities between the Transmission company of Nigeria, generation and distribution companies.
In a bid to give a reply, he stated;
“The power sector is mostly privatized, some of the responsibilities are outsourced”
“Our partners are at the generation and distribution levels, and the government is handling the transmission. And for it to work effectively, all of them must be up and doing. As it is now, we have serious challenges here and there along this value chain.
“Apart from the three major players, we have an interface, because the generators need fuel, either from a natural source, which is the hydro, which contributes about 20 per cent of the generation, or gas to fuel their plants. So, this is another challenge And you know how gas is in the international market.
The Minister added, “Another interface is also between the generation and transmission, then, transmission to distribution. Now, the installed generation capacity, as you all are aware, is up to 13,000 megawatts. But it has to reach the customers before it becomes useful.
“So, what is going on is that the transmission, due to lack of attention to it for a very long time – not now, has culminated in the situation we are having on transmission, whereby they have to deal with obsolete and weak equipment, which need to be replaced. Some that are replaced need back-up in case there is a trouble that can be tackled immediately.”
According to the Hon. Minister, the distribution network is also facing the same problem.
“So, these two – the distribution and the transmission – are what we have been trying so hard to upgrade to ensure that we raise their operational capacities to a level whereby they will be able to evacuate what we have in the generation. There are various interventions going on,” he said.