Fashola explains power supply shortfall

MINISTER of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola on Wednesday gave reasons why there is shortage of power supply in the country.

Briefing State House correspondents after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by acting President Yemi Osinbajo, he blamed the situation on lack of payment to gas suppliers, sabotage and shut down of oil terminals.

He said: “We heard there was liquidity problems, gas suppliers haven’t been fully paid, and you have back and forth between DisCos and GenCos.

“So, those are the issues apart from the sabotage that we have had from the Western axis of the Niger Delta. So, the Escravos Lagos pipeline is not operational.

“The Forcados export terminal too has been out of operation. So, if you can’t produce oil, you can’t take the gas. The gas is the fuel that the power plants need.”

Fashola noted that government has been working on increasing the capacity in firing transmission but had been hampered by shortfall in fuel supply. He added: “What then happens on the grid is that once it goes below 3,000mw, it becomes unstable. It is like in your house when you have surges and your circuit breakers trip to protect the system. So, once it falls below a certain threshold you then have those trip offs. “These are in a sense almost necessary to protect the entire system.”

He also disclosed that while attempts were on to restart Afam power station in Lagos last week, there was an outbreak of fire just as it also happened in Kainji. He said unless people change their negative attitude towards power infrastructure, the problem of poor power supply may persist.

According to him, “while we were trying to start last week, we had a fire in Afam and that affected the control room and these are normal engineering accidents that can happen. The mechanical parts can break down.

“We also had another fire in Kainji. We have tried to repair them over the last weekend while negotiations with the gas companies are ongoing. “I have been meeting with the gas suppliers, trying to see how we can pay off some of these debts whilst fix other problems.”As I continue to say, it is not technical but financial. Vandalism of pipelines is not technical.  People are destroying it, they are hungry.”Until we resolve these behavioral issues, people who collect money, are they remitting everything in a manner that is fair even if it is not enough?

“Some people hold up their own share and they ask themselves why should we continue to supply if we can’t get paid because there are bankers and financiers?  “So, we are talking with everybody trying to resolve it.”

The minister said FEC approved the sum of N274.3million increase for the contract to complete Odogiyan transmission substation in Ikorodu, Lagos which was initially awarded in 2009 at the cost of N3.225billion. “This approval was to help us complete the Odogiyan transmission substation in Ikorodu, Lagos and to provide additional transformer capacity at the substation 260 KVA transformers and transmission lines of 132KVA,” he said.