The Federal Government on Friday said about N120m monthly, totalling
N1.5bn annually was being spent to repair power and gas lines being
destroyed by vandals across the country.
It also said despite the increasing vandalism however, the outgoing
administration had been able to achieve installed minimum electricity
generation capacity of 5,500MW.
The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, disclosed this to State
House correspondents at the end of a board meeting of the Niger Delta
Power Holding Company Limited presided over by Vice President Namadi
Sambo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said before the present administration finally winds down on May
29, President Goodluck Jonathan would still commission some completed
power projects across the country. The minister regretted that the continued vandalism, which occurs
every two weeks, had led to a situation where the country lost about
1,600MW of electricity at a particular time.
Nebo urged the incoming government to intensify security surveillance
of the petroleum pipelines in the country and consider digitalising the
surveillance system. He said four completed power projects would soon be commissioned. He said, “Four power plants have been completed and will be
commissioned in the next couple of weeks; Sapele is one of them, Ihobor
is another one.
“Hopefully and by the grace of God, we intend to do the commissioning
very soon so that Nigerians will enjoy more benefits of what the
current administration has done in the power sector. “There are literally hundreds of other projects that need to be
commissioned.
So very soon we are going into commissioning exercise.” Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State who is a member of the board
also said apart from the new power plants, the government had completed
more transmission lines but would not be able to complete some sale
transactions because of some complications in the bid process and
inadequate gas supply.
The inability to seal the sale transactions, he said, were not due
to fear of the unknown when a new government comes on board next month. Managing Director of the NDPHC, James Olotu, said the Company’s
2013/14 Statement of Accounts is now ready for anyone or institution
that wants to know the financial status of NDPHC.
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