Minister unfolds 13-point agenda to revive power sector

dimeji akinloye

January 11, 2016 5:03 PM

The minister said the agenda involves continuous public engagement on tariff collection, debts, power generation and maintenance.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, on Monday unfolded a 13-point agenda to drive efforts towards enhancing power supply in the country.

Fashola said in Abuja during his maiden meeting with power generation, distribution and transmission companies, and other stakeholders that the agenda was drawn up to ensure effective monitoring of the sector.

The minister said the agenda involves continuous public engagement on tariff collection, debts, power generation, maintenance, ancillary services, dispatch orders and discipline.

Others areas include gas requirement and constraints, transmission constraints, 33KV load offtake, imbalances-locations of excess, overload safety, service quality, new captive and embedded generation, franchising and other issues relevant to the growth of the sector.

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According to Fashola, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved that all stakeholders in the sector should hold monthly meetings on issues concerning the industry.

He said that the meeting would be rotated among the various GENCOs, DISCOs, TCN and other stakeholders across the country.

Fashola said that all decisions reached in such meetings would be binding on all the stakeholders.

In this respect, the minister stated that the various companies and stakeholders would each be represented by a management member with authority to take decision on behalf of their companies.

He explained that in order to minimise the cost of hosting the meetings, the companies were advised to jointly pull up resources required to hold the meetings.

The minister further said the meetings would also involve lawyers, engineers, planners and other stakeholders, adding that the ministry would issue a communiqué at the end of each meeting on steps taken to address challenges in the sector.

dimeji akinloye