LONG-SUFFERING Nigerians, who may have been coaxed into believing that a significant improvement in power supply levels awaits them this year, cannot but be dismayed at the persistently poor output of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria. In spite of claims by government officials of improved electricity supply across the country, the reality on the ground is that very little has changed in the lives of Nigerians, who still have to depend heavily on standby generators as their primary source of electricity. Companies that had long given up on public power supply, because of its erratic nature, continue to invest heavily in alternative sources of power to keep their production lines running in a very difficult business environment created by acute shortage of electricity. Everyone still has to cope with frequent and prolonged power cuts with serious implications for the social and economic lives of the people.
Rather than witness any improvement, as promised, information obtained from official sources have contradicted the government’s claims of improved service delivery by the troubled public utility, the PHCN, which has a monopoly of electricity supply in the country. For instance, official records showed recently that power generation capacity suffered a significant decline from an all-time high of 4,517 megawatts recorded last December to a miserable level of about 3,300 megawatts in the middle of April. What a shame for a country aspiring to be among the top 20 largest economies in the world.
For an aspiring economic power, with an estimated population of close to 170 million people, flaunting a generating capacity of 4,517 megawatts shows a lack of ambition. When compared to countries with similar population size and economy, the Nigerian story is laughable. The appalling situation is worsened when the paltry generation capacity cannot even be sustained or be improved upon.
The dip in power generation to 3,300 megawatts is a throw-back to the level of 1999, when Nigeria made the switch from military dictatorship to democratic rule. Within the period in question, the government has reportedly thrown well over $20 billion at the electricity problem with very little to show for it. Given the current situation, these are valuable resources gone down the drain.
Just as in previous cases, the current drop in power generation has been attributed to system collapse; this should not come as a surprise. While the government seems to have been preoccupied with increasing the country’s power generation capacity, very little attention has been paid over the years to the transmission aspect. The point has often been made that, if the transmission capacity remains at its current level, no amount of gains made in power generation will translate into improved service delivery. Most of what is generated will either end up as waste or lead to system collapse, once the transmission capacity is overloaded.
Last year alone, the country suffered a total of 24 system failures, out of which 15 were total collapses. According to figures released by the PHCN National Control Centre in Osogbo, Nigeria has recorded 124 system failures in the past four years. Worsening conditions have been traced to reliance on obsolete equipment in the face of a rapidly expanding population and urbanisation.
Evidently, at the root of the failure to effectively tackle Nigeria’s power crisis is massive corruption, coupled with the lack of political will, which has prevented the government from taking the right decisions that should produce the desired results. Since 2005, when the Electricity Power Sector Reform bill was passed into law – primarily to hand over the ownership or management of PHCN to the private sector – the government has still not successfully privatised the sector. Only recently did the government muster the courage to sell some of the 18 companies into which PHCN was subdivided in 2005. And even the exercise has seen the companies going into wrong hands. Most have been sold to companies with virtually no antecedents in electricity business, thus paving the way for failure even before they commence operations.
The Power Minister, Chinedu Nebo, was recently quoted as saying that a $100 million facility had been obtained from the African Development Bank to improve the transmission capacity. It is however curious that $100 million is now expected to achieve what tens of billions of dollars could not achieve.
Be that as it may, it is still heartening that the government has suddenly realised the importance of tackling the transmission problem. What should be of utmost importance is making prepaid meters available to Nigerians. It is sad that close to a decade after the concept of prepaid meters was introduced, the majority of Nigerians still have to bear the burden of arbitrariness called “estimated billing.” Under this system, customers are made to pay huge amounts as electricity bills, and they are supposed to pay even if they have not enjoyed the services of PHCN for a few seconds in a whole month.
The government need not be reminded of the importance of electricity to the economy. With the unemployment rate close to 30 per cent and industrial capacity utilisation at below 30 per cent, the government knows that only stable electricity supply can take the economy out of the woods. Nebo must therefore find the political will to put an end to the country’s electricity crisis.
Punch Nigeria
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