Why There’s Drop In Electricity Supply—Power Minister

Posted by Rotimi Fadeyi Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Wednesday, August 17th, 2022

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, on Wednesday explained why there was drop in electricity supply in the country.

According to him, gas supply has been a major issue affecting the generation and supply of electricity.

Aliyu spoke while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari

He said, “regarding the drop of electricity, yes, you know, the supplier has so many players, gas, the cost that drop, issues of gas to some power plants they cannot switch on their plant, you will experience some drop once they switch on, the electricity will increase”

“There may be drop due to fault of generator and the electricity would drop. Its mostly generation. I’ve been watching since like yesterday evening, we had a generation of over 4000, around 4600 megawatts.

“We told you since 1st July, that we’ll be able to raise it up to 5,000 when we activated the contract. And we have not been able to do so, due to some issues around gas contracts, gas to power, which we are trying to take care of.

“This morning, it drop to 4100. So, this is what is happening, you will be experiencing this fluctuation due to all these issues around gas to power, because gas is not something that we control directly, you have to pay them, they will not give you gas until you pay. So, we are looking at ways to solve that issue”, he added.

Aliyu also disclosed that FEC approved memo requesting that of rates of building structures of compensation and resettlement of the communities affected by the construction of 700 megawatts Zungeru Hydro- electric power project be revised from N19,640,000,000 to N22,380,000,000

Also speaking at the briefing, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Umana Umana, said Council approved revised additional sum of N765,974,975.50 to cover the additional works done by the forensic auditors of the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC)