By
John Michael Ojo
To ensure the economic prosperity of Nigeria, the nation needs a daily generation of 100,000MW of electricity against the less than 5000MW being produced .
This was disclosed by the Group Chairman, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, and Founder, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr. Tony O. Elumelu, CON, in an interview with ARISE TV monitored by New Times on Wednesday.
Elumelu who also chairs Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp whose subsidiaries include Transcorp Power, one of the leading producers of electricity in Nigeria and Transcorp Hotels Plc, Nigeria’s foremost hospitality brand, maintained that stakeholders in the generation, transmission and distribution units must work together for maximum efficiency.
He said: “Transcorp through Transcorp Power and AFAM Power owns the highest capacity of electricity generation in the country with about 2000MW of electricity a day but unfortunately it is only able to generate less than 500MW of such today.”
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Elumelu stated that “the major constraint in this area is gas and the issue of transmission and evacuation of generated electricity coupled with the issue of payment.”
Hence, for the system to work well, he said more gas has to be generated. This he said was a major reason for investing in the oil and gas sector by his organisation.
“We want to be able to ensure the control of our destinies as we have gas from our oil and gas production which we convert into electricity.”
“The other elements that have hindered power supply in the country included transmission and distribution.
” We need to make sure we stabilise our transmission lines.
“This country needs at least 100,000MW a day for it to be able to power the economy. But today, we operate less than 5000MW. We need to do more, so we need to make sure the transmission lines are stabilized.
“Another critical area is distribution, metering and payment.
“I must commend the Central Bank Governor, Emefieli who has done very well in this area, because he came in to help increase revenue in that space.
“Up until the end of last year, the NDECT used to pay about less than 20% of the power supplied, but today the pay has improved up to 50%, though Transcorp Power alone is owed over a N100 billion but that has improved.
“For the power sector to work well and it must work well if we have to drive the economy, we need to increase generation, make sure we fix gas supply to generating companies. We need to make sure the transmission lines are capacitilized to evacuate the powers. We need to make sure the power generated is taken by DISCO and they meter the end users and that they pay so that if I generate electricity I will be able to get my money so that I can service my organisation also as well as make sure the spares are serviced and the machines acquired to keep the generating plant running.”
Elumelu, who is also the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, a family-owned investment company committed to improving lives by investing in Africa’s most strategic sectors
maintained that the power sector is still a critical sector that needs more investment and the stakeholders must ensure that it works.
“I think that the sector is still a critical sector, we need investment in the sector, the stakeholders need to make sure that it works because if it works, then the country’s economic development becomes real. If it doesn’t work it’s going to be a problem,” he said.
He said as the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, one of the challenges which young entrepreneurs face is the issue of electricity and this has left most of the SME’s unable to survive.
“I through the Tony Elemelu Foundation support young entrepreneurs. If you ask them what are some of the challenges you face in this country, they tell you poor access to electricity. So, any amount you give, some of them will not succeed because they spend so much on electricity.
“Even in the hospitals, the health care sector, schools, every sector of our economy. We need to fix the power sector and I think we need to privatise it more.
“I commend the effort going on now in making sure that we privatise the remaining ones but the transmission lines, we need to fix them, and we need to make sure we improve the payment system.”
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