Following pressure from electricity generating companies and other stakeholders in the power sector over Federal Government’s indebtedness, the Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, has set April timeline to commence the payment put at over N3 trillion. He also said that to cushion the foreign exchange constraints faced by electricity generating companies, discussions would be held with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to prioritise the power firms in forex disbursement.

The Minister disclosed these yesterday during his tour of facilities at Egbin Power Plc in Lagos. Adelabu, while commending the board and management of the plant for sustaining the facility, said he also came to seek their understanding as the Federal Government is owing the power generating company a lot of money. Briefing journalists after the tour, he said: “We don’t want this to cripple their operations. They have been magnanimous enough to keep on generating, otherwise, they could have packed up, but we don’t want this to happen to this kind of wonderful power asset.”

He said the Federal Government was now prioritizing paying down on the outstanding debts. “I have assured the board and management that by April we will start paying down on the debt as a form of incentive, as a form of encouragement to continue to have them in operation. That is what I came here to do. “We also discussed about gas, the feedstock to fire the steam turbines. It is even an impediment to almost all our gas powered plants.

We already had discussions with the Honorable Minister of Petroleum Resources (Gas), and we are also meeting with the gas suppliers to plead with them to have an understanding that the Federal Government is prepared to start paying down on the debt we owe the gas supplying companies. “We are going to give them some guaranteed debt instruments in terms of promissory note. We are looking for a way to allow them access into Nigeria’s gas wealth, so that this will be used to defray the outstanding debts of the gas suppliers. “We will start seeing impact of this from next month, by April when we start paying down on the debts owed over time.

This will be a thing of the past very soon. I have had meeting with the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning and I believe they are going to look for some funds to start paying down on these debts,” he said. Speaking on the challenges with sourcing foreign exchange by power investors, the minister agreed that it had been a major constraint to effective maintenance and sustaining the facility. He said: “Once I have seen what we have on ground here and the critical need for spares and tools for continuous maintenance, we will be able to liaise with CBN to prioritise forex allocation to the power sector.

“This will ensure we are able to ramp up capacity in terms of generating output. It is not just peculiar to this power plant, it is across all the generating plants. They need forex for them to be able to maintain the turbines, replace the tools, get the spares, and this has been a major issue. I am going to liaise with the CBN to see how they can prioritize forex allocation to the power generating companies. “I am here to actually have a useful conversation with the board and management of the plant to see areas where we can collaborate, areas where we can cooperate and areas where we can partner as the Federal Ministry of Power to see how we can support our mission, our vision in the Ministry of Power because our success is highly dependent on the key stakeholders in the sector and of which Egbin Power Plant is a major stakeholder as a leading generating plant.

“I am quite impressed by what I see here, the turbines are operational, the workers are wonderful, a lot of things are happening here, very brilliant staff, very innovative, very creative and the management is quite committed. They are passionate about this business and I am proud to be a Nigerian.” On his part, the the Chief Executive of Egbin Power Plc, Mokhtar Bounour, said receiving a delegation led by the Honourable Minister of Power was a very special day for the organisation.

He said: “The message is clear, they care about power generation, they care about the country, they care about the community, and they 100 per cent align with our strategy. “We are here to serve, and we need to generate. We have highlighted all the challenges we are facing here and solving them gradually so we can see improvement in the near future.” He, however, said yhe major challenge faced at the moment was that of gas availability. “We don’t have enough gas to run the full capacity of the plant. We are losing a lot of revenue. We are investing a lot. This is a 40-year-old plant. We need a lot of investment to keep it running. This is the first one.

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