The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has claimed that the country needs to invest the sum of $10 billion yearly to revive the power sector for the next 10 years.
The minister made this revelation on Monday during a one-day investigative hearing on halting the electricity tariff increase by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), organized by the Senate Committee on Power in Abuja.
He was quoted by NAN saying: ‘For this sector to be revived, the government needs to spend nothing less than $10 billion annually in the next 10 years. This is because of the infrastructure requirement for the stability of the sector, but the government cannot afford that.
‘So, we must make this sector attractive to investors and lenders.’
He continued: ‘The increase is based on supply, stating that any customer that does not receive 20 hours of power supply will not be made to pay the new tariff.’
SaharaReporters had reported how the President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government had approved a N225 ($0.15) per kilowatt-hour tariff increment for Band A electricity consumers in the country.
The Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Musliu Oseni, who made this known at a press briefing in Abuja, said the increase would see customers paying N225 per kilowatt-hour from the current N66.
According to Oseni, customers in Band A, who are those who enjoy 20 hours of electricity supply daily, represent 15 percent of the 12 million electricity customers in Nigeria.”