The Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Security (IES), Nana Amoasi VII, has disclosed that government debt to power suppliers is the reason for recent power outages.
According to him, the supply of natural gas from Nigeria has been erratic since the beginning of the year owing to low financial capacity.
Speaking on TV3 on Thursday night, Nana Amoasi VII argued that, owing to the government’s debt to natural gas suppliers, they are unable to purchase an additional one.
“You know we have a problem with gas supply; there are debts there. The IPPS we owe, WABCO we owe, GNPC we owe as a country, and GRIDCO government owes. All the key players within the value chain are owed money by Government.”
“…If the issue is about financial constraints, then we will have dumsor until we are able to generate revenue, or Government will resort to other means of financing to deal with the numerous that we have in the sector,” he noted.
Touching on the 6.56% tariff reduction by PURC, Nana Amoasi VII asserted that people will pay for power supply when they are given consistent and reliable power.
He also stated that the refusal of the government to admit power outage issues is another challenge hindering the process of solving power outages.
“Because one way to solve your problem is first admitting it when you understand the problem and then begin to work at it.”
“And so the major thing we need to do is correct the mistakes and deficiencies in the system,” he highlighted.
Nana Amoasi VII therefore advised the government to handle the energy sector with care, adding that failure to do so may criple the sector.
“We mishandled the ESLA, and today we don’t know how much has been rigged so far, and we still have the energy sector debt going up,” Nana Amoasi VII added.
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