Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, says more than 300 containers of power equipment remain stranded at the country’s ports, with some left there for as long as 20 years.
Tegbe disclosed this during the Federal Executive Council briefing on Wednesday, saying President Bola Tinubu had directed that the containers be cleared.
He described the situation as appalling, saying the government would work with the Nigerian Ports Authority and the Nigeria Customs Service to clear the equipment and assess its condition.
“Some of them have been in the ports for honestly for over 20 years.”
“It’s appalling to see that we find ourselves in such situations.”
The minister said experts would inspect the equipment after the containers had been cleared to determine which could still be used and which had become obsolete.
“What we plan is working with NPA and working with customs is we’ll clear those containers, we’ll bring them in, we’ll get experts to open them up and assess the conditions of the power equipments there.”
“Where some of them are obsolete, we’ll decide what to do with them.”
“Where they are still relevant, we’ll have to fit them in and use them for the right purposes.”
On efforts to improve electricity transmission, Tegbe said the government was targeting an increase in transmission capacity from 5,000 megawatts to 19,000 megawatts within the next two years.
He said the council had approved transmission projects as part of efforts to expand the national grid, improve its resilience and optimise existing power sector assets.
“In the power sector, the council approved transmission projects as the government targets an increase in transmission capacity to 19,000 megawatts within the next two years.”
“As we continue to do this, in addition to this, we’ll continue to optimise the assets that we have in the sector. Hence, we plan to build resilience into the grid by building out and investing in grid expansion.”
The minister said the planned expansion would help match transmission capacity with the country’s electricity generation capacity.
“The intention is to be able to upgrade our transmission capacity to be able to up a game from 5,000 megawatts transmission willing capacity today to about 19,000 megawatts.”
“That will effectively match what we have in terms of generation power capacity of about over 13,000 today.”
Tegbe also disclosed that the government had paid more than one trillion naira towards the three trillion naira owed to electricity generation companies.
He said the outstanding debts had affected gas supplies to power plants, adding that the government was working to address the financial challenges facing the sector.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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