The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has warned that there will be a total blackout in Nigeria in the next three months if the proposed electricity tariff hike is not implemented.
The minister stated this yesterday in Abuja when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power at an investigative hearing over the recent electricity tariff hike by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
This is after the Senate committee, led by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, rejected the new tariff regime.
Adelabu warned that the entire sector would be grounded if the Commission fails to increase the tariff.
Adelabu said, “The entire sector will be grounded if we don’t increase the tariff. With what we have now in the next three months, the entire country will be in darkness if we don’t increase tariffs.
“The increment will catapult us to the next level. We are also Nigerians. We are also feeling the impact.”
He said $10 billion yearly for the next ten years is needed to revive the nation’s power sector and nip in the bud the challenges bedevilling it.
“For this sector to be revived, the government needs to spend nothing less than 10 billion dollars annually in the next 10 years.
“This is because of the infrastructure requirement for the stability of the sector. But the government can not afford that. And so we must make this sector attractive to investors and to lenders.
“So, for us to attract investors and investment, we must make the sector attractive, and the only way it can be made attractive is that there must be commercial pricing.
“If the value is still at N66 and the government is not paying subsidy, the investors will not come. But now that we have increased the tariff for A Band, there are interests being shown by investors,” he said.
