Abuja
The Federal Government says it has set in motion plans to raise electricity generation capacity to 25,000 megawatts by the end of 2023.
The Minister of Information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed this during the unveiling of the scorecard of the current administration in the country, as the Buhari-led governent marked the first year anniversary of its second and last tenure.
He attributed the expected boost in the power sector to the product of an agreement between the German power company, Siemens and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Mohammamed said that the agreement reached in July 2019, was to boost power supply in Nigeria.
According to Mohamed, Under the three-phase agreement, Nigerians will enjoy 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by the end of 2021 (phase 1), 11,000 megawatts (phase 2) and 25,000 megawatts in the third phase.
The Minister added that the perennial power problem would become a thing of the past by the time the agreement is fully implemented.
“It will be an understatement to say that inadequate power supply, hallmarked by regular blackouts, has stifled Nigeria’s economic development.
” It is perhaps, the single most formidable obstacle to the country’s economic development..
“To put things in proper perspective, Nigeria’s current power generation capacity is more than 13,000 megawatts, but only an average of 3,400 megawatts reliably reach consumers.
“In essence, the current amount of power that reaches consumers will more than double by the end of next year. In addition, this will create thousands of jobs and will leapfrog the country into the next level of industrial and social development.”
The minister said President Muhammadu Buhari was passionate about delivering electricity to Nigerian businesses and homes.
He toward this end, Buhari had charged Siemens, the partner investors in the distribution companies, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to work hard to achieve 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021.
Mohammed further hinted that the game plan was that after the transmission and distribution system bottlenecks had been fixed, Nigeria would seek to drive generation capacity and overall grid capacity to 25,000 megawatts.
