The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo has admitted that it is not realistic that Nigerians will experience a steady power supply this year. 

He made this known today in Lagos at the annual Power Investors Summit hosted by EnergyNet, in conjunction with Nextier Capital Limited.

“If we look at the level of dilapidation, we are coming from a state of total disrepair of infrastructures, we are coming from a situation where the population was galloping and there was non-committing [to] development of infrastructures and infrastructures continue to decay,” the Minister said.

Continuing, he said, “Most of the plans are not going to be ready by the end of the year. The transmission infrastructures will not quite be ready by the end of the year. What we think from all studies and frameworks right now is that by the end of the year we will be able not only generate but have the transmission capacity to wheel out 6000 megawatts that’s what we are projecting from a very technical and realistic point of view.”

On the funds allocated to the transmission companies, the Minister said that much of the money has been put aside for various projects that will continue to grow transmission capacity from 2015 to 2017.

On the inefficiency of the distribution companies (DISCOS) and the need for proper monitoring, the Minister said that “they do not have the power and financial muscle to do better than what they are doing today so it is left for the regulators the BPE, National Council on Privatization to call them to order and we are looking at that because it appears that they didn’t tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it appears that somewhere along the line they didn’t let us know the financial gaps that they have.”