Patito’s Gang examines meters, honesty and power problems

This week’s episode of Patito’s Gang takes a hard look at the challenges in Nigeria’s electric power sector and concludes that the status of the sector does not support industrial, commercial or residential customers.
The panelists in the programme highlighted that the power sector, in spite of commercialization/privatization initiatives cannot, as presently structured, shoulder huge responsibility of powering industrial revolution and competitive productivity in the services sector.
The panelists lamented that current energy production implies per capita consumption of each Nigerian is less than 15 watts of power per day. This translates to less than 75 watts of energy for a family of five[5] or not more than one[1] 60 watts bulb per family. In this case any family that presently uses two[2] bulbs or more is living in luxury and consuming energy allocation of several families in about 40% of local governments not presently connected to the grid.
The acute shortage of meters in the country was identified as symptom of poor public sector project management because government had understanding of the number of pre-paid meters required to support easy collection of tariff from consumers but made no arrangement to attract foreign investment with regard to local manufacture of more than 20 million pre-paid meters needed to kick-start the privatization programme.
World Bank study has indicated that Africa requires about $60billion annually to address her energy gap. Nigeria’s share of this spending is estimated at $4billion annually to achieve desirable energy output to power industrial and commercial activities.
Similarly, the Better Business Initiative [BBI] study projected that if Nigeria achieves 69,000MW output in 2020, the country would still be 19 years behind the world average. Past and current administrations’ promise is less than 20,000MW.
These and more are the thrust of conversation in the current edition of Patito’s Gang scheduled for broadcast on Channels Television DStv network at 4:30pm on Saturday, September 23, 2017. Repeat broadcast is scheduled for Monday, September 25, 2017 at 8:30 pm on the domestic service of Channels Television.