Fashola Says Power Sector To Get 2,000MW Boost

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, says  plans are on to add 2,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.

He assured Nigerians of improved power supply, as the government was refurbishing power plants.

Speaking at a budget defence session in the Senate, Mr Fashola said the Ministry together with the major players in the electricity sector had set a target of adding the additional megawatts of electricity by the end of the year.

He also said that the ministry had started holding monthly meetings with the distribution and generation companies to look for solutions to the problems in the power sector.

This is coming just as some Nigerians have decried the current state of electricity supply which had dropped from what it was after the current government assumed power in May 2015.

Mr Fashola told the lawmakers that before the emergency projects – the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) – introduced in 2004, no power plant was built in over two decades.

“Before the emergency projects, the NIPP projects, the last major power plant that was built in the country was probably the Egbin power plant and that was when I was in the university.

“But our population has multiplied. Even when Egbin was built, we were already behind.

“Therefore, that contextualises why privatisation is not going to happen as a miracle for success.

“But it will happen. I am very clear in my mind that it will happen if we take the right order,” he stressed.

He further pointed out that since private capital came into the sector, some idle power plants had been refurbished.

“I can tell you from the inspections that I have done that some power plants that were ideal before are either being refurbished or have been fully refurbished.

“And we think that if we succeed, we should be able to add another 2,000 megawatts by end of year on an incremental basis through the year,” he said, assuring Nigerians of an expected increase in power supply.