Nigerians must pay to have stable power supply – TCN

The Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, has said that for Nigeria to have stable electricity supply, the power sector must be run like a business, where consumers are ready pay.

Speaking at a policy dialogue on power sector, an event put together by Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP) over the weekend in Kaduna, he said uninterrupted power supply is possible in Nigeria, but requires investment to have the network, and that investment requires that people who are consuming this product should pay.

According to Mohammed, “In African countries where there is stable power supply, people pay for electricity that they consume. If you go to places like Burkina Faso for example, the cost of electricity is more than two times what we have here and the people are paying.

“I want to tell Nigerians that, generally, electricity has to be run like a business and that means we have to pay for electricity for us to have electricity. So, this idea of people not wanting to pay, and feeling that, electricity is a social service, should stop; that culture should stop, so that, we can expand the grid and provide stable electricity.

“Electricity is an investment that is required to have the network and that investment requires that, people who are consuming this product should pay.”

Commenting on President Muhammadu Buhari-led government’s strides in the power sector, the TCN MD said, the government inherited a power sector that had problems in generation, transmission and distribution, but it has been able to fix the challenges in generation and transmission to a large extent.

“You will agree with me that, when the government of President Muhammadu Buhari came in, all the value chains in the power sector had problem, from generation, transmission and distribution.

“You recall that, that time, generation was hovering around 3,500 megawatts and the same with distribution and transmission capacity was not more than 5,000 megawatts.

“But, as at today, if you look at transmission, even as at December 2018, the transmission capacity was around 8,100, it means that significant improvement has taken place. As at today, the generation capacity is about 7,500, it also means there is significant improvement.”

He added, “There are some mistakes we made in the privatization of the power sector that led to the fact that, we have very weak companies that have succeeded in taking over the Discos.

“We need to correct that weakness created by the recapitalization of the Discos, because when we privatized, we didn’t have the synergical investments coming into the distribution network.

“Definitely, there is something that needs to be corrected and that is why I said there were mistakes.”