Minister of Power, Works and Housing Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, has said that the Federal Government will revisit abandoned 2003 N37 billion NEPA/PHCN fraudulent contract,
Fashola, who was the guest lecturer at this year’s edition of the public lecture series of the Department of Economics of the University of Lagos, recently disclosed that the Federal Government wants to improve power on sustainable basis.
According to him ,through the Power Sector Reform Programme (PSRP), the government, he said, would achieve, among others, the metering of customers, and their appropriate billing.
He said that meters by the same manufacturers were calibrated for each DisCo’s use, such that you cannot use a meter calibrated for Ikeja DisCo in Eko DisCo without recalibration.
The minister who spoke on the topic spoke on ‘Power sector reforms: Challenges and the way forward. added that, Meters, cannot be installed without a visit to the customer’s home for audit assessment, saying that DisCos liquidity problem makes it difficult for them to access credit to order meters. “One DisCo requires over N20billion to meter.
The consumer base does not capture all those who consume power, and without meters, the DisCos aggregate power distributed to a destination and estimate of the bill is difficult.’’ Reinforcing the need for whistle blowing for energy theft as a civic responsibility, he said such reports would expose customers who don’t pay or steal energy,” Fashola said: He said,“Those who are resisting the installation of meters and assaulting DisCo workers, who seek to install meters must stop it. It is a criminal offense.
The government had, in 2003, 14 years ago, issued a contract for the supply of three million meters to NEPA/PHCN estimated at N37 billion. “That contract was not performed until the privatisation was concluded in 2013, and was inherited by the Buhari government as a court case in which a judgment of N119 billion had been signed against government.
We have worked to get the case out of court, negotiate the judgment and go back to the N37billion contract to see how many meters it can now provide, and how to install them.
We are still finalising the terms of agreement.” According to the former governor of Lagos state, “We recognise that our power supply is not enough; and what we have done is do the simplest thing, get more power. So, our road map seeks to get, first incremental power, progress to stable power, and then achieve uninterrupted power.”
He said, “From this road map it must be clear to any right thinking and well-meaning person that this is a journey and not an event that will happen overnight. As we progress on this journey, we will get to critical milestones from which we can look back and say we are now better off at that milestone, than when we started the journey.” “Instead of doing these, the government believes that the lapses in the privatisation policy can be re-engineered, retrofitted or reformed to deliver, he said.’’
