Isaac Anumihe, Abuja

NIGERIA’S power sector players at the weekend called on the Federal Government to inject more fund into  the electricity industry to fix  the acute undercapitalisation rocking its foundation.

Speaking during the electricity stakeholders Health Walk in Abuja, the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr Mohammed Gur, said in addition to adequate capitalisation, the industry is facing liquidity crisis,  regulatory inconsistency and poor supply of electricity to consumers due to inefficient power infrastructure and poor investment planning.

He called on all Nigerians to desist  from vandalising power infrastructure, or building under power lines.

According to him, the government has extended transmission capacity from less than 5,000 megawatts, to 8,100mw as at December 2018 in addition to  establishing rehabilitation and expansion programmes which attracted over $1.66 billion from international donors, to increase generation capacity from less than 4,000mw to 5,375mw,” he said.

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Meanwhile,  the Managing Director, Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited (MESL), Engieer Lamu Audu, said that his company  took over the Kainji and Jebba plants with zero megawatts but has now developed 440MW at Kainji and 922MW at  Jebba.

“MESL is strategically placed and located. Globally, such power utilities are privately owned and that was why government privatised the power sector to inject the needed efficiency. Since we took over the plants of Kainji and Jebba, we have made tremendous progress since the last six years. We took over Kainji with Zero megawatts (MW).

Today,  we have 440MW at Kainji and  922MW at Jebba and we are continuing with the capacity recovery. So it is paramount that we attract investment which can come from private investors.

“For Mainstream, we are located on the River Niger and there is need to ensure that the countries upstream of Nigeria do not dam the river. We also generate cheap electricity.  So,  we are strategically placed to be involved in the electricity market in West Africa. We are expanding Kainji by 240MW to be able to sell power to West African region to earn foreign exchange for Nigeria. By that, we will attract other investors to develop the other hydro schemes” he said.