Why power supply worsened in the last one month

dimeji akinloye

May 14, 2015 10:38 PM

The permanent secretary to the Ministry of power blamed the worsening power supply on activities of vandals.

Godknows Igali

The permanent secretary to the Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, has disclosed that the country has lost 1,800 MegaWatts of electricity in one month.

Speaking at a joint meeting between his ministry and the Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy in Abuja on Thursday, May 14, Igali blamed the worsening power supply on activities of vandals.

He said, “We have been able to explain to electricity consumers that the current power outage is as a result of high rate of pipeline vandalism.

“They vandalise both the crude pipelines and gas pipelines. When the crude pipelines are vandalised because people want to steal crude, and condense some that affect the gas.

“The more sinister one, which is with a lot of pain, is when people deliberately blow up pipeline written clearly Gas Pipeline. They blow them up almost every day; they blow them up and that denies the power plants some gas.

“Unfortunately, our country depends on a lot of gas. We have hydro pipelines in Shiroro, Jebba and Kainji, which are the major ones. But in dry season, the hydro does not do well.”

The perm sec said about 200 people, vandalising gas pipelines in the last two months, have been arrested by security operatives and are undergoing investigations.

“Security agencies have arrested 200 people vandalising gas pipelines in the last two months, and they are interviewing them and working with communities to solve this problem and put it behind us,” he said.

dimeji akinloye