The Senate Committee on Power on Tuesday disclosed that there is no coordination in Nigeria’s power sector.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Gabriel Suswanm, who made this known while speaking at the investigative hearing on power sector, added that Ministries, Departments and Agencies are owing N98 billion as electricity bills.
The Senate had last week embarked on investigation into the over N1.8 trillion the Federal Government had spent intervening in the power sector at various times, but failed to yield the desired impact of improving power supply.
Suswam said the Committee has discovered that there is no alignment anywhere and that is the problem, lamenting that the Federal Government is spending huge amount of money paying for debt that is already owed.
He said: “You will discover from what we have heard for the past three days that there is a serious misalignment in the power sector.
“The reason why, in spite of the huge expenditure, we have been unable to achieve anything because there is no proper coordination.
“We have listened to presentations from the government side and the operators and we have seen that there is no alignment anywhere and that is the problem.
“The blame game among them has to stop.
“Once there is an alignment and proper coordination, that yes, if we generate 13,000 megawatts, and transmission is able to transmit at least 10,000 megawatts, and discos are able to absorb the 10,000, and there is proper tariff, it makes the sector solvent.
“Once there’s money in the sector, the other potential investors will come in.
“The banks will be able to also put in more money so that the sector will begin to run on its own.
“But where we are now, it will be unthinkable that government will stop providing the intervention.
“Once that stops, everything will collapse.
“We are spending huge amount of money paying for debt that is already owed.
“We must begin to focus on how to address the issue of infrastructural deficits in the power sector.
“Let’s spend money on metering.
“Let’s at least meter about 80 per cent of those connected to the network and then be able to collect enough money to make the sector liquid.
“The problem is the sector is insolvent.
“The DisCos are unable to collect money.
“Money from MDAs, owing N98 billion and individuals.
“There are a lot of issues and those issues must be aligned.
“And that is what we’re trying to do in this public hearing.”
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