House of Rep Summons Minister Fashola over Poor Electricity

The House of Reps on Thursday summoned the Minister of Power, Mr Babatunde Fashola, to appear before its members to give detailed reasons for the prevailing poor electricity supply in the country.

To appear with Fashola are Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET), National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Generation Companies (Gencos) and Distribution Companies (Discos).

Fashola, the agencies and companies as well as stakeholders in the power sector are expected to be at a public hearing to be conducted by the House on the power supply issue.

The invitation followed a motion under Matter of Urgent Public Importance by Hon. Johnson Agbonayinma (Edo-PDP), who called for an urgent attention to epileptic electricity supply across the nation.

He recalled that defunct power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was unbundled in 2010 into generation, transmission and distribution companies because the Government could not manage the company.

He said splitting and given them to private concerns was to ensure improved efficiency and profitability in the sector, but unfortunately that is not the case presently.

The lawmaker, however, expressed dissatisfaction that in spite of privatising the company at a “landmark 2.5 billion dollars’’, Nigerians were yet to feel the impact of the exercise.

“When the Federal Government had the distribution and generation companies, light was more constant than what Nigerians are experiencing today.”

He decried the current situation where power generation which was over 4,000 megawatts when PHCN was operational had dropped to 1,500 megawatts, throwing the nation into darkness.