Minister for Power, Mr Abubakar Aliyu has blamed the poor power situation in the country on the continuous collapse of transmission and distribution lines, saying the government is working hard to improve power supply in the country.
He explained that the country at the moment has an installed capacity of 13,000 Mega Watts but can evacuated only 5,000 Mega Watt to the national grid.
The Minister who made this known Tuesday in Makurdi during a courtesy call on Governor Samuel Ortom while on a working visit to Benue State, assured that Federal Government was working hard to boost power generation and transmission in the country.
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He said, “power is one area that has been receiving attention of this Federal Government. We know that the government owns 40 percent of the distribution. The National grid is controlled from Osogbo and must receive enough energy to transmit power. Government has set out to rehabilitate the transmission grid and we are beginning to see results.
“Our national transmission has not increase from 5,000 Mega Watts but it has not dropped. We used to have more than 15 to 17 system collapses in the past but we only experienced two in 2021.
“We will see improve this year 2022. It is a year of delivery. The Yandev to Makurdi transmission line will also be completed within six months,” he assured.
On the Presidential Power Initiative, he said it was being implemented in partnership with the German Goverment and driven by Special Purpose Vehicle with the Minister of Finance as the board Chairman.
According to him, under the project, the Federal Government had ordered 10 Power Transformers to be deployed all over the country which would boost electricity supply in the country.
The Power Minister who was accompanied by the Minister for State, Power, Mr. Goddy Agba explained that they were in the State to inspect the ongoing upgrade of the Joint Sub Stations from Kashibilla in Taraba state “where there is a dam and power plant to Yandev in Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State which has been completed and already giving power to Takum, Wukari and its environs. The project’s capacity is 40 Mega Watts but there are technical issues we are addressing.”
Receiving the delegation Governor Ortom commended the President Muhammadu Buhari for improving on Power distribution in the country.
“The Power Ministry is committed to execution of projects under their purview. I can attest to the fact that there is an improvement to what we had seen in the past as far as power generation and distribution is concerned. I commend the President for this,” the Governor said.
