After one year and several billions of dollars in spending, the Federal Government appears to be failing to meet critical targets it set for itself in the much publicised power roadmap which was inaugurated with fanfare.
The power roadmap had been roundly acclaimed as the best policy direction by the government and many had hailed it as capable of taking the country out of perennial darkness. But data now suggests that once again, the Federal government is failing to walk the talk in this crucial area.
One significant agenda which the government committed to attaining in the first quarter of this year was the privatisation of the eleven distribution and six generation assets. The government failed to achieve this and the privatisation of these key assets has now been delayed by one whole year.
It was hoped that getting the state-held assets into private ownership and management would spur massive private investment and job creation capable of producing the same flourish that the nation’s telecommunication sector has witnessed since the entry of private enterprises more than ten years ago.
While the Power sector reform roadmap targeted total power generation of 7,033 megawatts of electricity by April 2011, actual power generation as of Tuesday, July 12 was a dismal 3,200 megawatts.
This is still a far cry from the 5,755 megawatts of power government technocrats said would be the realistic delivery target by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Gathered data shows that instead of a steady increase in power generation levels, there has been a worsening of the situation, largely by the failure to supply the required gas, low water level at the hydro power plants and the delay in the rehabilitation of key but ageing thermal power plants in different locations in the country.
According to the roadmap, the transmission and distribution networks should have been reinforced by about 30 percent as of April this year. This target has also not been achieved, and curiously, for a government which puts power at the top of its agenda, questions are now being raised as to why there has been a huge gap in the funds disbursed by the government and the amount needed to get the job done.
Under the power roadmap, the government set for itself a short term twin objectives of rehabilitating1,000 megawatts (mw) of generating capacity at existing Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) power stations, and adding 1,266 mw of generating capacity from the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs). Data now shows that the government again failed to achieve this objective while actual power generation during the period fluctuated between 3,000 and 3,200 mw.
The thermal stations being built under the NIPP scheme are not fairing better, and it now appears that the wait for gas at these stations may never come to an end as the government’s national gas master plan remains only a plan and incapable of delivering on the lofty targets set for it by the government.
At the Independent Power plant in Olorunsogo in Ogun State, four units of the plant are ready while two units are ready at the Alaoji power plant, but the prospects of them generating power remain gloomy because of poor gas supply to the locations.
At the Sapele independent power plant in Delta State where two units have been completed, generation is being held down by some technical issues relating to opening a gas supply line from the nearby Oben gas transmission station.
In the transmission sector, although some successes have been recorded, the transmission lines remain unattended, leading to a situation, as in the case of Afam, where the government still has not been able to put the power generated there into the national grid because of lack of transmission lines to evacuate the power.
In its effort to reinforce and improve the capacity and reliability of the transmission grid, government commissioned eight new 60 MVA, 132/33kV power transformers at various transmission stations nationwide as of May this year at a cost of N1.5 billion.
Similarly, investigation showed that there has been steady enhancement in the capacity and reliability of the 330kV and 132kV sub-stations as well as its 330kV and 132kV route length lines.
The government also set for itself the target of installing a distribution target of 9,057 megawatts from 5,758 megawatts as of April this year, but the target is yet to be achieved even in July.
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