The Federal Government has approved N200 billion payment for the power sector to improve gas supply to the power Generation Companies (GenCos) and boost electricity supply during the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown period.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mele Kyari disclosed this after a meeting with the Minister of Power, Engr. Saleh Mamman, and the Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Usman Gur Mohammed, at the Ministry of Power in Abuja.
He said, “The Federal Government has made payment of over N200 billion for power in the two or three days, this will go a long way in making sure that those payment issues are resolved and we are engaging as government to make sure that those payment issues are fully settled.”
Kyari also noted that the meeting was held at the instance of the Minister to further improve gas supply to the power plants.
The TCN head said there is gas availability but there are several power plants that do not have gas supply agreements.
“The suppliers always divert it to other place and from time to time, we always have constraints of gas and that is a big problem to us.”
The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Chiedu Ugbo, who was at the meeting, said the NIPP GenCos under his operations, will get the gas fund and pay up.
He noted that Calabar NIPP is the only NIPP plant with gas agreement.
“Thankfully, the gas was there during this period and we ramped up production. We did 400 megawatts (MW) of power when every other plant was down.”
On the distribution section, Ugbo said his firm has been intervening by providing 500KVA transformers, wires, and cables to replace faulty ones in the networks of the DisCos to ensure there is more access to electricity during this period.
TCN MD also said DisCos need investment to evacuate more power.
“The order the NERC issued recently is going to assign responsibility on the side of the DisCos for them to be able to pay for capacity that they fail to take. That will compel them to put investment in the network and will compel them to meter customers.”