The Federal Government, on Wednesday, revealed that the country’s power debt has continued to rise while declaring that it was now “very difficult to sustain subsidy on electricity”.
Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, while speaking at a press conference, disclosed that Nigeria must begin to move towards a cost-effective tariff model, adding that the country was currently indebted to the tune of N1.3tn to electricity generating companies, while the debt to gas companies was $1.3bn.
According to the Minister, only N450bn was budgeted for electricity subsidy in the 2024 budget, stressing that findings by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission showed that subsidy would gulp about N2.9tn this year.
He noted that the crisis in the power sector had been so complex, stressing that the national grid had collapsed about six times between December 2023 and now.
According to him, this was caused by gas shortage, ageing machines in the grid value chain, low capacity to evacuate generated power, and destruction of power stations in some parts of the North-East geopolitical zone of the country.
