Fashola blames DISCOS for Nigeria’s power problems

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has blamed electricity distribution companies for the poor state of power in the country.

The minister, who spoke at the 29th Power Stakeholders Meeting in Minna, the Niger State capital, said distribution companies are the major obstacles militating against progress in the power value chain.

This is in spite of a recent threat the companies gave on quiting the power sector recently.

According to him, the inability of the distribution companies to distribute over 2000 megatwats of power and supply of meters to consumers, constitute a large percentage of feedback from stakeholders.

“Those who know and who genuinely desire to solve problems in this industry do not need to be told that the most pressing challenge of the Sector today lies at the Distribution end.

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“Amongst the challenges at this sector of the value chain, (and there are problems in Gas, Generation and Transmission), the most urgent are Distribution of available energy to consumers, and there is an unused energy in the region of 2,000 Megawatts in this category.

“The other, of course, is the supply of meters to consumers. These two issues of power distribution and supply of meters rank highest in the feedback from the stakeholders in the industry.

“In order to address these challenges and find solutions to them, I issued policy guidelines and directives to appropriate institutions for them to act.

“It is in this context that I think it is fortuitous that Mainstream is our host today, because my remarks will focus on the review of progress we have made with some of our policies.

“I have always insisted that there must be methods to decision making, and this includes evaluation of decisions to see how they have progressed and what needs to be added or modified.

“Therefore, we must understand that policies are not an end in themselves. Policies represent an expression of our hopes and aspirations and must be embraced, nursed and nurtured to deliver on all their capacities and possibilities.

“In a sense, I liken policies to the human being. At birth, he represents the hopes of parents for tomorrow. Left alone, that infant is helpless, so he is dependent for feeding, clothing and all survival needs until he becomes ambulatory, able to stand, walk, talk, run, and matures into adulthood.

“With this analogy in the background, I will address the progress of some of our policies for the benefit of members and the larger public”, the minister said.

 

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