Fashola opens up, says metering, governance issues frustrating privatization
While maintaining sealed lips on possibilities of revoking the privatization exercise by the present administration, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has again, acknowledged that there were challenges that came with the privatisation of the industry such as metering and governance issues.
In an interview in Abuja, he revealed that “These are among the reasons government came up with the Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP), as a component of its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) to solve the challenges and put the sector on the path of sustainable growth”.
However, Fashola noted that “having solved that governance problem, other items to be faced include metering and expansion of distribution network. Although there is an existing capacity of 2,000MW of power that could not be distributed, government was working to see what it could do quickly to solve the problem before the end of the year”.
The minister disclosed that the Azura Power in Edo State recently reported the completion of its plant, and was now ready to run full operation.
“That is 459MW of power. We are expecting another 240MW from Afam, and another 215MW from Kaduna, and also from Kashimbila. There is a lot of power coming; but the distribution end is where our real challenge lies.”
