Reps meet over Power Outages

*As Nnaji Advises State Governments to Look at Sources of Gas before Investing

Jonas Ezieke, Abuja

The House of Representatives on Tuesday held stakeholders dialogue on power challenges in Nigeria with a view to addressing the frequent grid collapse and power outages in the country.

The theme of the dialogue is ‘Confronting Nigeria’s Power Challenges as the Nation Migrates to a Multi-Tier Electricity Market’.

This happened as a former Minister of Power Prof Barth Nnaji has advised state governments to always look out for sources of gas supply before Investing in power infrastructure.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Hon.Tajudeen Abbas said that the dialogue became necessary because numerous stakeholders have expressed the view that an increase in electricity tarrif ‘ll make the power sector ineffective.

He further stated that the nation is in dire need of a resilient and sustainable power sector.

He also said that the dialogue to bring together critical stakeholders in the power sector together for collaboration in other to enhance efficient power supply.

Also in his opening remarks, Chairman of the House Committee on Power Hon.Victor Nwokolo said that the gathering is with a shared commitment to address one of our nation’s most pressing issues which is the availability of electricity to Nigerians.

A former Minister of Power Prof Barth Nnaji and other speakers at the event said that effective collaboration of critical stakeholders is necessary to foster the needed synergy to provide power at affordable rate to the citizens.

Nnaji while profering solution to the challenges of incessant power outages said that all dilapidated power infrastructure needs to be replaced and it is the power distribution companies that must do that.

He also advised state governments faced with power outages to look out for the sources of gas to power the power stations as gas is critical to power generation and distribution.