Power Minister seeks understanding over electricity supply

The Federal Government has urged Nigerians to exercise patience over the state of electricity supply in the country, stressing that time is required for ongoing projects to translate to improvement in power supply across homes and industries.

Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, while speaking in Abuja, said insecurity, port-related challenges and flooding were affecting the completion of some ongoing electricity projects in the country.

Aliyu, who stated this while inspecting some projects around the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), disclosed that the $2.3 billion Siemens-Nigeria power deal remained on track.

Aliyu disclosed that while some transformers from the Siemens deal are being cleared from the port and would be installed in the coming days, a team of Nigerian engineers would be traveling abroad in the next 17 days for factory testing of some of the next transformers that would be shipped to Nigeria.

He disclosed that so far, Nigeria has conducted factory acceptance tests in Germany, France and Italy, adding that while some of those transformers are on the sea, there are clearance issues as well as flooding which affected dispatch to necessary locations. He said three of the mobile substations have been tested and would arrive in January next year.

Asked what his comments would be to Nigerians over the state of power supply, he said “patience.”

“These projects are projects that take time to complete. You can’t start today and complete tomorrow. Projects take time and most of the equipment you see are not manufactured in Nigeria.

Aliyu noted that sourcing for dollars, transporting the equipment to Nigeria and other things involved in the value chain require time.
Aliyu said while the progress of some of the projects are slowed down by insecurity, efforts have been made along with the military to ensure the projects go on smoothly.

“We are working round the clock to face it head on. We already have military personnel that are helping in this regard. Zungeru would have been completed since January but you know what happened where the insecurity stalled that project but now everything is progressing.

He said the Abuja ring project would have added about 1465 megawatts (MW) to transmission wheeling capacity and 870MW transformers located in Dawaki, Apo, Lokogoma, Lugbe and Kuje areas of FCT.

Aliyu said he was satisfied with the work done on the project, adding that the projects would be completed in phases this November and December.