The Executive Director, Research and Advocacy of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, has opened up on why the Minister of Power and other officials should be banned from using generators.
Sunday Oduntan
While speaking with reporters in Lagos on Tuesday, the Executive Director, Research and Advocacy of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (RAANED), Sunday Oduntan, suggested that public officers responsible for providing power should be banned from using generators.
Oduntan who made the call said that the measure was necessary to compel public officers to live up to expectations in doing their jobs.
He said top government functionaries, including the minister of power and other agencies in the power sector should be disallowed from using generators at their homes and offices to make them find lasting solution to the endemic power problem.
“I believe that Nigeria has reached a point when all of us, including investors in the power sector should be banned from using generators.
“If the minister of power, permanent secretary and investors in the power sector are banned from using generators, I believe we will come together and fix the problem once and for all.
“My personal opinion is that as long as we continue to have alternatives to this problem, power failure will persist.
“We have failed to recognise the fact that electricity is a product and the product comes with a cost.
“Distribution companies cannot continue to buy a kilowatt of energy for N68 and sell to consumers at N31.58 and expect a magic wand.
“There won’t be meters, transformers and electricity supply as well, unless we have a cost reflective tariff.
“When the sector was privatised in 2013, the government in power promised a cost reflective tariff among others but unfortunately they have not fulfilled it,” he said.