The House of Representatives Wednesday asked the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman to met out stiffer sanctions to Distribution Companies (DisCos) over what the legislature described as gross irresponsibility and wickedness in the execution of their contract in the power sector, thereby subjecting Nigerians to hardship.
This was just as lawmakers described as illegal, President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET) should be an Agency under the Ministry of Finance.
Chairman, House Committee on Power, Magaji D’au Aliyu (APC-Jigawa) who stated this at the 2021 budget defence session at the National Assembly, said the directive breached the law setting up the agency and the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives.
“As far we are concerned in this Parliament, NBET remains under the Committee on power. we have what we call standing orders of the Parliament that must be followed. The president had the prerogative to do that(transfer the agency to finance), but there are also laws. There is a legal means of doing things”, he maintained.
Members of the Committee were angry with the Minister for not issuing sanctions to DisCos over their culpability in the poor power supply in the country.
A member of the Committee, Wale Raji expressed displeasure that: “citizens and communities have been forced to carry out installations of infrastructure, such as transformers, conductors, electricity poles because the DisCos bluntly refused to invest.
“Most of the DisCos are irresponsible. They are grossly irresponsible. We don’t even know whether we were not better off with PHCN. Transformers will breakdown, DisCos will not replace, communities will have to buy. It is nothing but exploitation. You will need to do more to protect the citizens.
“All these protests you are seeing are accumulated anger against the government. You will need to do more in sanctioning DisCos for not providing and replacing damaged infrastructure”, he told the minister.
Chairman of the Committee while ruling told the Minister that: “sanction the DisCos, please. If you do that, you will be our darling, you will be the darling of Nigerians too. Nigerians are cheated. We don’t know who to call, we don’t know who to hold. It is you we know.”
Defending the 2021 budget of his Ministry before the Power Committee, Mamnan who said the country was doing well in power generation, however, decried poor distribution of electricity.
Mamman said: “Under the able leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the country’s grid power capacity has increased significantly from the time this administration took over in 2015 to sate.
“Today, the installed grid power generation capacity has reached 13,000MW from 8000MW in 2015; similarly, transmission capacity has increased to 8000MW from 5000 in 2015. The distribution system has the capacity to evacuate 5500MW of power, having grown from 4500MW in 2015. The private sector ran Distribution system has the least capacity in the power value chain.
“During the period between 2015 to date, the sector has recorded successes and has faced challenges. In order to deliver this administration’s promise of providing stable and affordable power to Nigerians, a way forward was defined and supported by Mr President’s political will.
“Based on the above-mentioned efforts, the quality of service enjoyed by electricity consumers in Nigeria has improved as evidenced by the recent report from National Control Centre (NCC), Osogbo, which recorded highest energy generation per day in the history of the Nigerian electricity market delivering 112, 488MW of energy on 8 April 2020, while the grid also recorded the highest peak generation ever of 5,420MW on 17 September 2020.
“This indicates an improvement in the supply of quality and reliable electricity. Furthermore nationwide, there are reports of improvement in the number of hours Nigerians are provided with electricity. This will only get better with the implementation of the Siemens Electrification Roadmap.”
He stated that Siemens would be involved in both generation and distribution, saying the project would be financed through a foreign loan from the German Government.
The Minister said the DisCos were enjoying 60 percent revenues of the power distribution while 40 percent was for the government of Nigeria, with the agreement that the DisCos would replace damaged infrastructure, and carried out other investment in the sector.
Mamman further told the Committee that the DisCos were in the habit of evading accountability, hiding under the excuse of government embargo on tariffs.
