Business
Poor Power Supply: Body Blames NERC, Others
The President, Nigeria Gas Association, Mr Dada Thomas, has declared that the nation’s gas to power sector is virtually dead as it does not generate enough money to sustain all the components of the value chain.
Thomas said that “the price we were paying for electricity was about the lowest in the world meaning that the end price of the product is not enough to cover the cost of production along the value chain.
“The second is that the DISCOS were expecting to be given 5.5 gigawatts of power to sell on a daily basis. But how much power do we produce on the average?
“Sometimes we produce 2 GW or 3 GW, the highest we produced was 5.6GW in February.
Thomas, who also is the Chief Executive Officer of Frontier Oil Limited, explained that at the time DISCOs were being bought, most calculations were based on assumption of getting certain amount of electricity to sell but that today most DISCOs find it difficult to get their money from consumers who enjoy services but are not ready to pay.
Commenting on the way forward, he stressed the need to stop further interference with pricing of electricity so that the price will stabilize based on market forces.
“There had been repeated interference in that process which prevents the changes in electricity tariff from reflecting the macro-economic changes that had taken place in the country.
“There had been judicial interference, people are taking operators to court and the courts are ruling on commercial matters which should not be”, he said.
He said that the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had failed as a regulator to bring to order, people who are misbehaving in the electricity sector.
“I said earlier on that the government and the DISCOs have their blames because when these franchises were bought, there were contractual and performance agreements that both parties had to fulfil”, he said.
Stressing that the government apart from being the worst debtor to the DISCOs, it had not been able to inject the fund of about N100 billion into the sector as agreed.
He said: “The DISCOs, government and NERC have totally failed all of us. The Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading has failed woefully in trying to make sure they fulfill their role to bridge the gap between the shortfall of money they have provided to the DISCOs and gas producers pending when the money will be out. They haven’t done this”, he said.
Chris Oluoh
Kenya made it a clean sweep at the Berlin Marathon with Sabastian Sawe winning the men’s race and Rosemary Wanjiru triumphing in the women’s.
Sawe finished in two hours, two minutes and 16 seconds to make it three wins in his first three marathons.
The 30-year-old, who was victorious at this year’s London Marathon, set a sizzling pace as he left the field behind and ran much of the race surrounded only by his pacesetters.
Japan’s Akasaki Akira came second after a powerful latter half of the race, finishing almost four minutes behind Sawe, while Ethiopia’s Chimdessa Debele followed in third.
“I did my best and I am happy for this performance,” said Sawe.
“I am so happy for this year. I felt well but you cannot change the weather. Next year will be better.”
Sawe had Kelvin Kiptum’s 2023 world record of 2:00:35 in his sights when he reached halfway in 1:00:12, but faded towards the end.
In the women’s race, Wanjiru sped away from the lead pack after 25 kilometers before finishing in 2:21:05.
Ethiopia’s Dera Dida followed three seconds behind Wanjiru, with Azmera Gebru, also of Ethiopia, coming third in 2:21:29.
Wanjiru’s time was 12 minutes slower than compatriot Ruth Chepng’etich’s world record of 2:09:56, which she set in Chicago in 2024.