Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has raises alarm over frequent National Grid failures, calling for immediate power sector reforms.
Director General of LCCI, Dr. Chinyere Almona in a statement said that with businesses suffering from the burden of poor power supply, the county need quick intervention actions to salvage the situation.
“We urge the government to consider the privatization of the national grid and support more efforts to scale up metering in the coming months.
“In finding a lasting solution to the perennial poor power supply and the recurring collapse of our national grid, the government should create the needed conducive regulatory environment, extend concessionary credit to operators in that sector, offer import waivers, and collaborate with the private sector to work together in policy formulation and implementation,” Almona said.
She noted that the Lagos Chamber is deeply concerned about the frequency of collapse recorded by the National Grid, the sole supply source of hydroelectric power nationwide.
According to her, ”this year alone, we have recorded eight grid failures, with three being recorded within a week. The worsening performance of the national grid is an issue of concern to the business community.
“Reasons for the recent collapses were more about the explosion of transformers, unexpected tripping of power generating stations, and other technical malfunctioning. Currently, the national grid only generates about 4,500MW of electricity for over 200 million people. Meanwhile, South Africa generates about 50,000MW of electricity to service about 59 million people.
“What lessons have we learned from past grid collapses and restoration efforts? By now, after numerous failures, the National Grid Managers should have identified the root causes and found lasting solutions. It is concerning that there appears to be no clear understanding of these causes or lessons learned from the restoration processes.
“After about 105 collapses in ten years, power sector stakeholders should know what drives these recurring failures and how to prevent them. We are troubled by the apparent lack of such understanding among regulators in the power sector,” she said.
The DG highlighted that the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), in its second quarter 2024 report, revealed that meter installation by electricity distribution companies declined by as much as 60.86 per cent in the second quarter of 2024.
According to her, the report further said that only 49,188 meters were installed during the period, making a 60.86 per cent decline from the 125,664 meters installed in the first quarter.
“We urge the government to stay on course with the reforms in the power sector, especially the metering targets that were earlier set.
“We call on NERC to create a conducive regulatory environment for the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to utilize a mix of all the meter financing frameworks outlined in the 2021 Meter Asset Provider (MAP) and National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP),” she said.
Looking at the opportunities available from a stable national grid, she said the Chamber see the benefits to businesses in Nigeria in terms of lowering the cost of production, which will also make Nigerian products more competitive in the international markets.
She noted that a stable power supply can also make us earn more foreign exchange earnings from supplying electricity to neighboring countries.
“The 2023 Annual Report of NERC showed that International bilateral customers from countries such as Niger, Benin, and Togo made a total payment of $50.36m to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) for electricity distribution in 2023.
“We acknowledge the ongoing efforts and reforms in the power sector and expect the government to stay focused on delivering on them quickly,” she said.
