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Only 36% Nigerians experience improvement in electricity

By on July 29, 2015

A recent poll results on the level of public electricity services to Nigerians have revealed that only about 36.4 per cent of the country’s 160 million people have seen some improvements in electricity supply in the last 30 months.

The result, which was released by NOIPolls Limited, an independent polling agency, showed that for the second quarter of 2015, Nigerians have rarely seen improvement in power supply even in the face of power reformation programmes.

The polls’ result however came at a time the government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) reported a record peak power transmission mark of 4,656 megawatts (MW).
The poll stated that only an average of 36.4 per cent of Nigerian households attested to seeing improvement in power supply over a 30- month period.
It also stated that the finding was influenced by the challenges faced from the generation, transmission and distribution end of the power sector.
The poll result, which was signed by the chief operating officer of NOIPolls, Dr. Bell Ihua, stated amongst others that: “More findings revealed that the power sector has been characterised by an erratic supply of power as there has been no clear consistency in the state of power over this period, with months of slight improvements as well as most often, months with no visible improvement.”

It explained: “For instance there has been a consistent decline in the proportion of Nigerians who saw improvement from January 2015 (32 per cent) to May 2015 (17 per cent); however an upward movement was recorded in June 2015, as 44 per cent of Nigerians attested to seeing improvement in power supply; thus representing a significant increase of 27-points from May to June 2015.”

“Moreover, nationwide quarterly averages revealed that Q2 2015 recorded the worst power rating, while Q3 of 2014 recorded the best power rating so far at 45 per cent,” it added.

The report also noted that in a general view of power tracking by geo-political zones over a 30 month period, the larger proportion of Nigerian households across all geopolitical zones have generally seen no improvement in power supply.

It said: “In line with this, the South-West zone recorded the lowest overall average power improvement rating at 32 per cent over the period in view, thus indicating that this zone is the worst hit zone in terms of poor power supply.

On the other hand, the South-East zone seemed to have enjoyed relatively the best power supply with an overall average of 41 per cent.”

NOI thus advised that while it provides the country with update on the power sector’s progress, it has become more critical for all other stakeholders to also conduct consistent step by step evaluations of strategies, transformation and intervention programmes developed to revive the power sector, especially from the generation and transmission end.

It added that developing long term strategies that will transform the entire power sector still remains the best approach to plugging identified gaps in the power sector.

Meanwhile, the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has disclosed its plans to deploy to its customers 500,000 electricity meters, with the first set of 100,000 arriving in the next five months.

KEDCO in a statement from its communication coordinator, Mohammed Kandi noted that the plan was in line with its intention to upgrade its services to its franchise distribution areas.

Kandi’s statement contained discussions of KEDCO with its consumers at a consultative forum where the Disco disclosed its plans to review its current electricity tariffs.

The statement also stated that in rolling out a new tariff system that it said is cost reflective and fair to all classes of power consumers on its network across Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States, KEDCO has pledged to maintain a fair service delivery regime to its customers.

“Our plans include connecting 350,000 new customers yearly and having a drastic reduction in Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses,” Kandi said.

 

[ThisDay]