There are indications that Nigerians and businesses may continue to grapple with an epileptic electricity supply, as generation dropped, yesterday, to 3,527.76 megawatts (MW), showing 877.28mw or 19.92 percent decrease, from 4,405.04MW recorded the previous day, according to data obtained from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO).
With critical electricity infrastructure struggling to maintain output, stakeholders warn that without immediate intervention to address the underlying gas supply constraints and aging transmission facilities, the nation’s power sector recovery will remain stifled.
Experts in the power sector have attributed policy inconsistency, regulatory weaknesses, corruption, and lack of political will to challenges hampering growth in the power sector.
Reacting, Prof. Wumi Iledare, energy economist, stated that the power sector is not just underperforming, it is also financially trapped.
He stated: “Over N4 trillion in legacy debt continues to choke the entire value chain: GenCos unpaid, gas suppliers constrained, DisCos struggling, and NBET overstretched.
“The so-called “solutions” have been mostly stopgaps – Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, interventions, guarantees, and subsidies – treating liquidity symptoms while ignoring structural failures.
“Until Nigeria embraces cost-reflective tariffs, with targeted subsidies, enforces market discipline, and resets governance, the sector will remain insolvent in practice – even if kept alive in policy. We cannot fix a structurally broken market with temporary cash injections.”
On his part, Muda Yusuf of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) argued, “Nigeria’s power sector remains one of the most challenging areas of the country’s economic reform agenda.
“Despite multiple reform efforts over the years, the sector continues to face deep structural, financial and governance challenges.
“These challenges are multi-dimensional, spanning political economy constraints, tariff distortions, weak investor capacity, transmission bottlenecks, and a persistent liquidity crisis across the value chain.
“The inability to implement a fully cost-reflective tariff regime – largely due to social and political sensitivities following recent macroeconomic reforms – has entrenched subsidy dependence and widened the sector’s financing gap.
“As a result, government intervention has become unavoidable in the short term to prevent system collapse and sustain the electricity supply”.
Article More woes for electricity consumers as power generation dips Live On NgGossips.
