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The Nigerian government has released the sum of N200 billion naira to the power sector to improve supply of electricity amid the coronavirus pandemic in the country.
The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, NNPC, Mele Kyari, speaking after a closed-door meeting of the NNPC team with the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, and Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, Usman Mohammed in Abuja yesterday Wednesday, said the federal government has made payment of over N200 billion naira in the last 23 days to ensure that issues around power supply is addressed.
Kyari said: “Actually the Federal Government has made payment of over N200 billion for power in the last 23 days and this will go a long way to ensure that issues around power supply is addressed.
“And we will work as a team to ensure that all issues are settled.”
The NNPC GMD also said that the team was in the Ministry of Power to inform the minister that in the last one or two months, and particularly during this COVID-19 period, NNPC has increased gas supply to the power sector.
Explaining further, he said: “there will be a significant improvement in power generation in all the Federal Government and associated power facilities.
“This also means that Nigerians will get better access to power during this lockdown period and going forward.
“There are issues around power supply process and we have discussed most of them and we are moving as a team to make sure that we resolve issues around payment and evacuation.
“We are very confident that this will get the desired result. We will visit some power plants tomorrow to make sure that we sort out any issue to ensure that Nigerians have access to better power.”
On his part, the TCN’s MD, Usman Mohammed said the meeting was to ensure that there is constant supply of power as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mohammed said the president had directed that there should be constant power supply to the people during this COVID-19.
“This is why this meeting was conveyed by the minister of power to discuss the supply of gas to the power plants, and this is very important,” he said.
Adding that “before now we have been discussing with NNPC, of course there is gas availability in the market but there are several power plants that don’t have gas and that is a big problem for us.
“With this meeting where the minister prevailed that NNPC should assist in supplying gas to the power plants we believe that will have steady and sustainable power supply going forward especially during the COVID-19 period.
