Electricity Consumers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have asked the new Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu to overhaul the power sector to ensure stable power supply.
The consumers, who spoke in separate interviews in Abuja, said overhauling the sector would improve power supply.
The President, Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Mr. Kunle Olubiyo, said the minister should do a surgical overhaul of the regulatory institutions and ecosystem of the power sector.
According to him, the minister should do an appraisal of the performances of all agencies in the last 10 years using benchmarks of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Olubiyo also urged Adelabu to engage the best hands as advisers and working team to enable him to achieve the Federal Government’s desire to give its citizens a stable and uninterrupted power supply.
He also urged the minister to review the privatization of the sector which he described as long overdue.
The minister said 10 years after the privatisation, the exercise had failed to deliver the desired results.
He said the review should be done across the value chain of the electricity sector from generation and transmission to distribution.
“By doing so, issues relating to increased expansion of the huge metering gaps, sector liquidity challenges and poor remittances culture, load rejection will be addressed.
“Other issues such as market shortfalls, tariff shortfalls, payment of generation capacity, and low generation per capita, weak transmission infrastructure resulting in a decline in transmission wheeling capacity and incessant power system collapse and load shedding will also be addressed’’, he said.
According to him, load rejection by electricity distribution licensees at the downstream sub-sector, poor quality of services, and near zero governance structure will be eliminated.
Also, the President, the Association For Public Policy Analysis, Mr. Princewill Okorie, said the privatisation of the power sector was meant to break the control of electricity generation and distribution from the government.
Okorie said the privatisation was to ensure an adequate, regular, and stable supply of electricity to the consumer at a reasonable cost.
He said unfortunately, the implementation of privatisation policy in the sector began to exclude consumer groups whose interest, satisfaction, and willingness to pay was seen as the attraction of the policy.
Okorie said tariff reviews have taken place severally since 2013 when the privatisation commenced, adding that consumer satisfaction impact evaluation and assessment was hardly carried out.
“We are appealing to the minister of power to support the delivery of people-oriented and consumer-protective power policies to Nigerians in the electricity sector,” he said.
On his part, an electricity consumer, Mr. Reuben Okoro, said Nigerians expect the minister to deliver stable electricity to enable them to do their businesses without relying on generators.
Okoro, who is a welder resident in Lugbe, FCT, said the minister should overhaul the entire power sector starting from generation to distribution.
A Fashion Designer in Area 3, Garki, FCT, Mrs Nosayaba Odigie, also wanted the minister to look into the issue of epileptic power supply.
Odigie said if the country was able to address the challenges in the sector all other things would fall in place.
