The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has urged the Federal Government to reconsider its policy on the utilisation of the $2 billion available to the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) with a view to spending a significant portion of the fund on the lingering power supply challenges being contended with by the nation’s industrial sector.
The Commission’s Vice Chairman, Dr. Musiliu Oseni, who gave the advice in his address at the NERC 20th Anniversary Celebration held in Abuja, said the government must adopt a more deliberate policy framework that would support improve power supply to the industrial sector in order to boost productivity,create jobs and ensure Nigeria’s sustainable economic growth.
Oseni stressed that while the REA’s mini-grid projects had improved energy access in rural communities, they are not sufficient to drive industrialisation or economic prosperity.
He canvassed: “There must be a deliberate policy by the FGN to power our industry for economic prosperity. You can power access through Mini-Grids, but you can’t power your economy to prosperity.”
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Reflecting on commission’s operations over the past two decades, Oseni maintained that the commission had successfully supervised the privatisation and unbundling of the formerly state-owned monopoly and also had been developing key regulatory instruments to improve reliability, market governance, and consumer protection.
According to him, when compared with the experiences of electricity consumers 20 years ago, currently not less than 30 per cent of the electricity consumers have experienced improvement in electricity services.
This is even as disclosed that through effective regulation by the NERC, the Federal Government had saved trillions of Naira in subsidies, thus contributing to the improved fiscal position of the Federal Government.
The industry expert, however, maintained that the nation’s transmission infrastructure still required substantial investment, noting that based on the current fiscal realities of the government it cannot alone to meet the required funds to meet the needs of power consumers in the country.
Oseni advocated the need for a robust regulatory framework to attract private capital into the sector, stressing that such initiative will ensure long-term stability, efficiency, and sustainability of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
The event, which has the theme “Strengthening Power Sector Governance for a Sustainable Future”, featured the participation of key stakeholders in the power sector.
