Lagos – An expert in power sector, Mr Abdul-Salam Fashola, on Monday urged the Federal Government to convene a Stakeholders’ Forum, to tackle the challenges of the nation’s power sector.
Fashola, the National Coordinator, Citizens Access to Electricity Initiatives (CATEIN), gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
According to him, this forum will involve stakeholders within different communities, while issues relating to energy generation will be discussed.
He said that if each community was generating power supply for itself, the country would not be experiencing epileptic power supply as it were, now.
Fashola said that the forum should deliberate on power generation according to what each community could generate.
The CATEIN Coordinator said that some communities with water and canal should improve on it so that they would use hydro, while some would provide gas.
Fashola said that some communities with coal would generate power with the commodity and provide power supply for its community and other areas.
“Now that the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) are blowing gas pipelines that supply gas to generation plants nationwide, we are at their mercy.
“If the gas pipelines were meant to supply only communities in the area, I am sure they would not blow them up.
“If we have hydro power plants in the West and the North and coal is used to generate for the South-West and gas for the South-South, the electricity supply would have improved considerably,’’ he said.
He condemned the privatisation of power sector, adding that investors should have been made to build their own generating plants.
Fashola said that instead of operating on their own, they bought the old generating plants that could not generate the expected megawatts.
He lauded the judgment of a Federal High Court in Lagos, for annulling the hike in electricity tariff, which took effect from Feb.1.
The coordinator said that the judgment was a victory for electricity consumers in the country.
Fashola said that since the introduction of 45 per cent hike, consumers had been paying through their noses. (NAN)
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