The failure of the Federal Government and the Power Holding Company,PHCN, to provide sustainable power to the people has pushed about 60million Nigerians into generating their own power.
The cost of this self power generation through the fuelling of all manner of generating sets is put at a staggering N1.56 trillion($13.35bn) annually.
This is aside from the N97.2bn the manufacturing sector also spends yearly to power their plants, with attendant high cost of productionand equally high cost of goods and services.
Making the disclosure in Lagos on Thursday, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, noted thatpower challenges have contributed to frustrating Nigeria’s economicdevelopment.
Mallam Sanusi, who spoke at the August Conference on ‘Gas to Power: Prospects and Challenges’ organized by the Nigerian Association ofEnergy Correspondents, NAEC, expressed concern that Nigeria ranks theleast in per capita energy, even as energy development is key to rapideconomic development.
“Increased provision and use of energy services, is an integral part of economic development,” he said.
The CBN governor, represented by his Deputy Governor (Financial System Stability), Dr. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, quoting the UnitedStates Central Intelligence Agency World Fact_Book reports, said, “onper capita electricity consumption in kilo_watt hours (kWh) for 2009,which ranks Nigeria 178th with 106.21 kWh per head, far behind SouthAfrica (4,921.26), Libya (3,281.87), Iraq (1,377.75), Gabon (900.00),Ghana (283.65), Cameroon) (176.01) and Kenya (124.68). This is indeedvery disturbing.”
Furthermore, he said that other challenges such as “the transmission and distribution networks which are poorly maintained and inefficientlyoperated making it difficult to move power from generation sites toconsumption points. The low tariffs coupled with high level of lossesin the system points to the fact that the sector is not financiallyviable.”
He said that these very disturbing factors caused the Central Bank’s recent intervention in the power sector to ensure that Nigerians getcritical services from the energy sector.
Sanusi explained that the CBN’s intervention “is derived from the desire to use monetary policy to fast_track economic growth and createjobs. In other words, to ensure that Nigeria has an electricity supplyindustry that can meet the needs of its citizens and power our economyinto the 20 top economies of the world by the year 2020.”
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