The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has insisted that the challenges facing the power Sector is not technical but manmade, The Guardian reports.

Speaking at a dinner organised by the Petroleum Club in Lagos last week, he clarified, “some people have said because I am not an engineer is the reason for continued power instability. But many people have served before me that are engineers and the challenges in power are still there, though I acknowledge their efforts.” He added; “Most of the problems in the sector are not engineering but manmade. For instance, we have a situation where close to 900 containers that have switches, feeders, control units meant for the power plants are trapped in our own ports for almost a decade.”

In addition, he said: “today, the power is largely controlled by the private sector, that is the Distribution Companies (Discos) and the generating companies (Gencos)[…]so if we are not generating or distributing power, whose fault? Government is only the manager of the transmitting company.” He continued, “The problem is also a value chain issue; you don’t solve one and leave the other. If Nigerians understand the situation on ground, they will be more considerate in their assessment and work with us to get there.”

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The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, yesterday disclosed that the discounted $5.1 billion cash-call debt owed International Oil Companies (IOCs) by Nigeria over a long period would be paid off within five years. Although Kachikwu did not state when the repayment would begin, he however stated that the repayment timeline was part of the concessions Nigeria got from the IOCs for discounting a whopping $1.7 billion from the cash-call arrears.

He recently disclosed at the 72nd National Economic Council (NEC) meeting that through negotiations with the IOCs, the $6.8 billion past due cash-calls burden on the federation was reduced to $5.1 billion, to be paid on an improved oil output.

Speaking after declaring open the inaugural meeting of the National Council on Hydrocarbon in Abuja, Kachikwu also said within the agreement, the payment from incremental oil production will not affect Nigeria’s budget production benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day (mbd).

He added that the discount translates to almost N8 billion in savings to the country.
“The first concession obviously is the fact that the country got a discount of $1.7 billion, and that is going to be paid over a period of five years and it will be paid from incremental volume of production and so we are not lynching into our 2.2mbpd to be able to pay for that.

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