By Firdaus Jibril
The Federal Government on Friday said it has no immediate plans to increase electricity tariffs, assuring Nigerians that its priority is to improve electricity supply, expand metering and strengthen the country’s power infrastructure.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, gave the assurance during a media stakeholders engagement in Lagos.
Speaking, Tegbe said the government was focusing on improving service delivery and ensuring consumers pay only for the electricity they consume through accelerated deployment of prepaid meters.
“There is no policy by this administration to increase electricity tariffs beyond the current level. Our priority is not tariff increase in the immediate term. Our priority is service improvement, universal metering and ensuring Nigerians pay only for the electricity they actually consume,” he said.
According to the Minister, the Federal Government has launched a comprehensive reform agenda aimed at addressing long-standing challenges across electricity generation, transmission, distribution and market financing.
He said the government would begin a technical audit of the national transmission network to identify ageing infrastructure, overloaded substations, weak transmission corridors and other bottlenecks affecting power supply.
Tegbe noted that strategic investments would also be made to stabilise electricity transmission along the Lagos, Enugu–Port Harcourt and Abuja–Kaduna–Kano corridors.
He added that the government was advancing a Power Sector Bond initiative to settle legacy debts owed to generation companies, gas suppliers and other participants in the electricity market in order to restore investor confidence and improve liquidity.
The Minister further noted that the Presidential Metering Initiative remained a key part of the reforms, noting that the recently inaugurated Power Force would train and deploy 5,000 Nigerian youths to install electricity meters across the country while helping to close the nation’s metering gap.
He disclosed that Nigeria had consistently generated about 5,000 megawatts of electricity over the past two weeks, attributing the improvement to better coordination across the electricity value chain and improved plant availability.
While acknowledging that significant challenges remain, Tegbe said electricity generation alone would not solve the country’s power problems unless transmission, distribution and revenue collection also improve.
He said the government would continue working with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and state electricity regulators to harmonise regulations following the implementation of the Electricity Act.
Tegbe said the reforms were expected to deliver a stronger national grid, lower technical losses, improved market discipline, increased investor confidence and wider access to electricity over the next two to three years.
He called on investors, electricity market operators, development partners, state governments, labour unions, consumer groups and the media to support the government’s efforts to build a more reliable and financially sustainable power sector.