The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has stated that the ministry would use a bottom to top approach to solve the perennial issues facing the power sector.
Adelabu, who was speaking at the Annual Roundtable for the Legislature, Judiciary and other stakeholders organised by the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA), said he would focus on electricity consumers rather than the generation part of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
The minister said this approach would engender liquidity that has evaded the sector since its privatisation as emphasis would be paid on several models to generate electricity to consumers which they would pay for.
While stating that the government would not neglect the generation aspect of the sector, he emphasised that the distribution and transmission needs careful attention to improve on the power generated but not utilised by consumers.
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“We will start from the customers, down to the distribution infrastructure to transmission. We will continue to improve the power plants but the focus will be on the delivery channel of power, like transmission distribution and metering. The infrastructure is very important,” he said.
On his part, The Chairman, Governing board of NEMSA, Engr. Suleiman Yahaya, appealed to the federal government to improve its funding to allow the agency to perform its mandate of enforcement of technical standards.
The Managing Director of NEMSA, Aliyu Tukur Tahir, said the agency was established by the NEMSA Act of 2015 (now the Electricity Act of 2023), which confers on the agency the power to enforce technical standards and regulations, technical inspection, and certification of all categories of electrical installation.
