In his address yesterday in Abuja at the opening of Presidential Expert Group Meeting (EGM) organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Nebo spoke extensively on activities of vandals that have cost the nation nearly 1,000megawatts of power in the past one week - on a daily basis.
Tagged “Expert Group Meeting on Developing an Infrastructural Scorecard Roadmap for Nigeria”, the meeting was attended by top Nigerian and foreign engineers as well as the Ministry of National Planning.
It is expected that the meeting will produce Nigeria’s infrastructure scorecard in 12 months.
The power minister who spoke on the topic “Nigeria’s Power Sector Transformation Story - Lessons from Emerging Market Economies” said destruction and theft of power installations constitute a challenge that is hampering the visibility of the impact of government’s reform efforts to Nigerians.
He said due to the current shortfalls in the supply of gas, many power plants are only able to utilise a fraction of their installed capacity.
Nebo stated that of the original six power plants that were privatised, not one is functioning at up to 70 percent of installed capacity, adding that to make matters worse, many of the gas infrastructure that supply the power plants have come under attack by vandals with various agenda.
The minister said oil thieves are breaking up gas pipelines in the hope of finding oil to steal while political enemies are hoping to reduce power supply in one area or the other in an effort to sabotage opponents.
Source: Daily Trust
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