Some members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday
tackled Abubakar Aliyu, minister of power, over the electricity situation in
the country.
Aliyu had appeared at an interactive session organised by
the committee on power.
The lawmakers expressed reservations over the erratic power
supply experienced across the country in recent weeks.
They said the ministry takes a “fire brigade approach” to
dealing with the power outage and has shown no commitment to fixing the
problem.
Muraina Ajibola, a lawmaker from Oyo state, said the
government is not prepared to provide constant power supply to citizens.
“These problems are not just starting now,” he said.
“For instance, we know every year there will be shortages of
water and then they would be a problem at this time. We also know that during
the period between January and March there is usually this shutdown. We have an
abundance of gas but we are not making use of it.
“What we do is fire
brigade approach. It is when that same problem is repeating itself that we will
stand up from somewhere and say we are repairing this.
“The summary of it is that we are not prepared to give our
people power. This is very sad because even when there is electricity, some
constituencies like mine don’t even have light. There is light only when they
want to send billing to us — estimated bills.”
‘POWER MINISTRY NOT
IN CHARGE’
Also speaking, Aishatu Dukku, a lawmaker from Gombe, said
her “heart bleeds” because the situation may not subside anytime soon.
“The permanent
secretary said until the end of next year. So that means we will continue to be
in total darkness until the end of 2023,” she said.
Sada Soli, a legislator from Katsina, said the ministry has
failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians.
“I don’t think the ministry of power is in charge,” he said.
“There is a complete abdication of their responsibility. It
is not their responsibility to deliver power to the consumers but they have a
role to play.
“We don’t know what the ministry is doing. I think he should
not be narrating this essay to this committee. Left for me, it’s a tutorial.
“I have the utmost respect for the permanent secretary but
they have written this for him to present to us. We are grateful for the
information but we need to know the generation as of today.”
‘NO MORE
EXPLANATIONS’
Mariam Onuoha, a lawmaker from Imo state, said Nigerians
need light — and not more explanations.
“I want to express my
displeasure at the way the federal ministry of power and their agencies are
handling the issues of power and power-related programmes,” she said.
“I want to assume that there is some level of conspiracy
targeted at bringing down government efforts despite all the money we have
appropriated. Why is this happening when we are about to round up the present
administration?
“Mr. chairman, you will agree with me that there is no
project this ministry has brought before us that has seen the light of day.
It’s always from one story to the other. Tell us what effects you are making to
cure the defects.
“We don’t want to hear the complaints. We need practical
steps to solve these problems. We want light. That’s what you were engaged to
do. Give us light and the heat this period is unconsiderable. If you don’t
solve this problem, you will be causing a lot of other health problems. I am
sad. Give us light.”
‘TRANSFER NBET FROM
FINANCE MINISTRY TO POWER’
Speaking earlier, Aliyu who was represented by Nebeolisa
Anako, permanent secretary of the ministry, said the power blackout is caused
by the disruption in gas supply to power plants.
He, however, said the outage has started to subside in some
areas because the ministry and its partners are working to alleviate the
challenges.
Magaji Aliyu, chairman of the committee, said the permanent
secretary should return on Friday to present concrete steps taken by the ministry
to address the power situation.
The chairman also said efforts should be made to return the
Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) from the ministry of finance to power.
“It is our opinion that we have to revisit the
privatisation,” he said.
“We thought you would come with a list of how many plants we
have and their capacities today. We have to do everything possible to bring
back NBET under the ministry of power.
“We will never make progress if NBET is elsewhere. We will
involve our leadership to ensure that the right thing is done for this country.
There is nothing you have told us that is new — nothing!
“So you have to go back and tell the minister that we are not
on the same page with the ministry and we did not agree with this submission in
totality. There must be light. We have to work hard to ensure that this problem
is solved. Where are the NIPP projects? How many plants do we have? What is the
generation, transmission, distribution, everything? The president must hear
this.
“We want you to come back to this by Friday with better
solutions.”
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