Lagos, Aba and Kano to get Uninterrupted Power in 2013

The Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji, has said that major industrial cities in Nigeria will enjoy sustainable uninterrupted power by 2013.

He made the disclosure whilst speaking at a workshop titled ‘Enhancing the productivity of Nigeria’s Industries’ organized by the Ministry of Trade and Investment.

The cities named by the Nnaji as set to enjoy stable power supply come next year include Lagos, Aba and Kano.

According to Nnaji, “The Federal Government is committed towards the implementation of the Power Sector Reforms Program, which is aimed at providing sustainable uninterrupted power supply to meet domestic and industrial demand. Part of the ongoing reforms is the implementation of a cost-reflective tariff structure that will open up the sector to attract more local and Foreign Direct Investment.

“As part of this strategy, we are going to partner the Ministry of Trade and Investment on delivering more power to the country’s industrial areas such as Lagos Kano, Kaduna, Onitsha, Aba, Shagamu and other places. Already, we have mapped out the industrial areas and more power will be delivered to these industrial centres.”

Continuing he said, “For example, we have concluded plans to move about 1,000MW power from the two power plants at Olurunsogo to Shagamu. This is because we have identified power as very critical to Nigeria’s Industrial Revolution Plan. Part of the problem militating against investment in the power sector is that we operate a non-cost reflective tariff structure. Currently, power producers owe gas producers about N24billion due to our non-cost reflective tariff.

“While we intend to address this problem, we also have plans to provide adequate incentives to rural dwellers through the new tariff regime. What we want to achieve in this country is to have a power sector that is robust to deliver sustainable uninterrupted power supply to drive the Industrial Revolution that is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Trade and Investment.”