MINISTER of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, on Monday, said the outright removal of electricity tariff will be insensitive to Nigerians.
This was even as he disclosed that the ministry is set to release a policy draft that would address the various issues in the sector.
Adelabu stated this during a meeting with heads of agencies under the ministry and other personnel in Abuja.
“We have the policy draft ready that is addressing various issues in the power sector. This will be released by the end of the month and finalised by April.
“This will cover the issue of tariff and government subsidy. We are in a very difficult situation in the country. I will be highly insensitive to call for the outright removal of subsidy,” he said.
Instead, he said the government is considering a two to three years roadmap that will help transition the country into a cost-reflective tariff regime.
In this vein, he said the Federal Government will continue to subsidise tariff until the time indicated in the road map, adding that this will also be reviewed from time to time.
His words: “ So, what we intend to have is a two to three years road map that will migrate us into a cost reflective tariff which means that government subsidy will remain till the end, but we will keep reducing it from time to time.
“As it is today, the government subsidises over 60 to 65 percent of the tariff but you cannot call for a total removal of the subsidy. So the price will cover the subsidy regime to cost reflective regime so that every six months, we will be having minor tariff reviews while yearly we will have the major tariff review,” he stated.
Also bothered by the spate of vandalism of power installations in the country, the minister said the ministry is currently engaging consultants on how to remotely protect power installations across the country.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had, on Sunday, put the total number of vandalism incidents at five.
In his address, the minister said, “I know you have faced a lot of vandalisation to power installations.
A lot of them are sabotage or outright theft and, like I mentioned earlier, the office of the National Security Adviser is working very hard to help us protect our power installations.
We are also talking to consultants to devise a way to remotely protect these power assets.”
Similarly, he directed the TCN to interrogate the cause of fire incident at the Kano substation with a view to forestalling future occurrence.
He said, “I am using this opportunity to instruct the TCN management to immediately interrogate the cause of the fire incident at Kano substation because we cannot afford this kind of incident consistently.”