The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu on Monday appealed to members of the Senate Committee on Power, to besiege the Federal Government to pay up the debts which is weighing the sector down.
Adelabu, who made the appeal during an oversight visit of the Committee to the Ministry said the amount currently owed to GenCos stood at N1.3 billion while the gas suppliers are being owed the sum of $1.3 billion, stressing that the gas suppliers are threatening to stop supply without payments.
The Minister said the nation’s electricity industry suffers deficit across the five segments of the power sector value chain, including gas, generation, transmission, distribution, and consumers segments.
According to the Minister, all though the country boasts of 14000 MW installed capacity, it had only generated only 5800MW, and that was three years ago in 2021.
He traced the country’s power sector problems to privatization stressing that the investors did not have the needed financial war chest to turnaround the sector with the required investments.
The Minister said said ministry have set target 6000MW generation in the next few years, urging the senators to provide the necessary support to ensure that this is achieved.
“I appeal to the Committee to put pressure on the Federal Government to offset these debts to enable us achieve the target” he said.
The Minister also said disclosed that tough decisions may be taken against the distribution companies otherwise known as DisCos, for under performance.
“The entire DisCos are not performing. Some of the DisCos are too big for efficiency, for instance, Ibadan DisCo is covering seven states” he said.
Adelabu said there are currently considerations in favour of franchising unserved areas in the country.