NERC Promises Improved Power Supply

The chairman of Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, has assured Nigerians that the challenges faced by Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, will soon be a thing of the past, as his commission had given licenses to companies that understand the major challenge facing Nigeria in the sector to generate power.

He also spoke of plans to increase power supply in the country to 9,000 megawatts, but he noted that the plans would still not be enough for a country as large as Nigeria. Speaking during a joint workshop organised by Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER) and the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHCR) in Lagos at the weekend, Dr. Sam Amadi, the Chairman of NERC, said the support of Nigerians and civil society organisations was crucial to helping the sector . While emphasising on other issues concerning the power sector, he urged the human rights society to get organised and set up a civil society group that would be in a position to represent the communities for public hearing, which should either be funded by the government or organisations. “This group should create a coalition that would be called ‘consumer advocate’ believing it would affect the lives of the people. Nigerians should come together and partner with NERC through the human right groups in the country to handle the situation and look for a way forward,” he added. He said the plan was to have 6,000 megawatts in 2012 at N24 per unit cost, adding that everybody was not supposed to pay the same amount because of the state of the very poor people in the society who consume very little energy. “No one will want to invest on Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) unless they know how they can get their money back…South Africa for instance, produces 40,000 megawatts with 40 workers while Nigeria produces 4,000 with 40 workers also, which is not rational and people are the ones loosing, South Africa has about 42,000 while India is about to add another 100,000,” he said. Amadi stressed that the N24 cost was changed to N4 per unit and was made possible through subsidy, explaining that low tension and maximum demand have no subsidy because the connection is directly from the transformer. Also reacting to the increased service charge by PHCN from N500 to N750, he stated that what should bother Nigerians is effectiveness of the service not the charges. His words: “Although the service charge ordinarily looks much, it is nothing compared to the N180,000 compulsory service charge industrialists pay monthly. What I think we should bother ourselves with now is how effective is the service going to be soon.”