Fashola says power distribution, not generation is his headache

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said that the issue challenging Nigeria’s power sector now is the distribution of power.

Fashola who met with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), to strategise on how to provide electric power in industrial areas said, “for too long, the story of our manufacturing and production sector has been characterised by lack of infrastructure, including power supply, and the best we seem to have done is to talk about the problem and imagine the possibilities if the problems were removed.

“Our meeting is important because we gather not to talk about the problem, we gather to solve the problem, we have a new problem; we have more power than we can distribute. In that context, we cannot continue to talk of lack of power; instead, we must talk about how to connect to the available and unsold power, and what it will cost to do so.”

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Fashola gave details of how power has been generated and distributed, stating that, “For the records, and as a matter of fact, Nigeria’s power generating companies are now able to produce 7,000mw and the transmission company is able to transport all of it and is expanding its capacity daily.

“The distribution companies have also increased their load taking capacity to 5,0000mw.

“However, this leaves a gap of 2,000mw of what you manufacturers will call unsold inventory.”

Meanwhile, President Buhari, in his new year message, promised to increase power generation through the power plants like Azura (459MW), Afam III (240 MW), Kaduna (215 MW), and a host of others.

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