* says N1.5 billion lost yearly to vandalism
* Jonathan to commission completed power projects
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Federal Government has disclosed that it has achieved installed minimum electricity generation capacity of 5,500 megawatts despite unrelenting sabotage of oil and gas pipelines by vandals.
It has also said it was losing N120 million monthly and N1.5 billion yearly to repairs of vandalised pipelines.
It further disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan will soon begin commissioning of completed power projects across the country.
The Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam and Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo, made this disclosure at the end of the last meeting of the Board of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Ltd in the life of this administration, chaired by Vice-President Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Villa.
According to Nebo, a pattern of deliberate vandalism of the pipelines, which occur every two weeks, has made the nation lose about 1,600 megawatts of electricity at a particular time.
He therefore advised the incoming government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to intensify security surveillance of the petroleum pipelines in the country and consider digitalizing the surveillance system.
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On the commissioning, he said: “Four power plants have been completed and will be commissioned in the next couple of weeks, Sapele is one of them, Ihobor is another one. And hopefully and by the grace of God, we intend to do the commissioning very soon so that Nigerians will enjoy even more the benefits of what the current administration has done in the power sector.
“There are literally hundreds of other projects that need to be commissioned. So very soon we are going into commissioning exercise.”
On his part, Suswam who is also a member of the board, said: “The board resolved to commission some of the numerous projects under the NIPP programme. Those projects are to be commissioned in the subsequent weeks.”
Apart from the new power plants, he explained that the government has completed more transmission lines but would not be able to complete some sales transactions because of some complications in the bid process and inadequate gas supply.
The inability to seal the sale transactions deals, he said, were not due to fear of the unknown when a new government comes on board next month.
Managing Director of the NDPHC, James Olotu, said that the Company’s 2013/14 Statement of Accounts is now ready for anyone or institution that wants to know the financial status of NDPHC.
