Steady power supply: FG promises October 2014 deadline

The Federal Government has for the umpteenth time, assured Nigerians of steady supply of electricity in the country by October 2014.
Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo who briefed State House Correspondents in Abuja on Friday said government has made efforts to ensure constant availability of gas at power stations to boost power generation.
Professor Nebo, who spoke after a meeting on power stakeholders at the presidential villa, Abuja, chaired by Vice President, Namadi Sambo, added that the debt owed by power generation companies would also be cleared.
He said “The generation companies have been complaining that they need to have all their bills paid. The good thing about this is that arrangements are being made to make sure that all the generation companies get their money as at when due.
“We are working on that. That is part of the meeting that was chaired by Mr Vice President.
“Next thing is how far we have come with the issue of even settling the gas question. The gas question has remained for quite a while. But very thankfully, the Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources and I, the central bank governor and chairman of NERC met severally to address those issues.
“And that eventually ended in finding resources to take care of the indebtedness of the generation companies to the gas companies.
“So once we take care of the backlog, we insist that the gas companies will eventually produce more gas.’’
He maintained that there are visible signs of government’s efforts to ensure constant electricity supply across the country in the past one week following improved gas supply.
“The cheering news from all of these is that if you have noticed throughout the country in the past one week people have been getting much better power supply.
“The gas is now beginning to come back and it’s something that gives all of us a lot of joy. And we know that it will continue to grow that way even until December because now some of the facilities, maintenance, repair works on the gas equipment and so on.
“The gas producers have come to a place where almost all of these is being taken care of, and then the new gas we are expecting we have then trickling in right now.
“So that part of the shortfalls we’ve had in production up to this time, we hope that by the beginning of October, we will see a much better stabilisation of the entire power delivery system in the country.
Speaking on generation capacity, Nebo noted that power supply have hovered around 4,500 mega watts.
“First, I would say we rejoice that for the first time in a long time, we have been averaging over 4,500 MW when we include nearly 300 mw of spilling reserve which is always put there to make sure that the reliability and stability of the grid is ensured at all time,” he said.

“So, we are really moving forward; it may not be as rapidly as Nigerians expect but it is important to let everybody know that indeed we are advancing, we are making progress and we will continue to make progress”.
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