By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—MINISTER of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said the main focus of government was to ensure stable electricity supply on incremental basis.

Fashola, who stated this yesterday in Abuja at the stakeholders meeting between the Federal Government and the private sector at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, said efforts made so far to ensure Nigerians enjoyed steady power supply involved transmission, generation and distribution.

According to him, the Kukoba Power Substation was commissioned on Monday to increase power situation in Abuja to 120 megawatts, which he said was part of the incremental power initiatives.

Fashola

Fielding questions from State House correspondents on efforts made so far by his ministry to improve  epileptic power situation, Fashola said: “Well it is an ongoing undertaking. As I have said, our road map is incremental power first and stable power and then uninterrupted power and that’s a journey.

“But we are focusing on incremental power. Just yesterday (Monday) as one of our incremental power initiatives, we commissioned the Kukoba power substation to increase electricity to Abuja by another 120 megawatt carrying capacity.

“So it involves not only transmission but also generation and distribution work, enabling the distribution companies perform better, enabling the GENCOs perform better and doing our own responsibility which is transmission.

“So, it’s an ongoing undertaking. As I said, you   must measure what we have done from where we started. On May 29, 2015, the power on the grid was 2,690 megawatts and we kept it now at relatively at about 4,000.

‘’With that, it’s going to be the minimum except for occasions where we have mechanical and electrical outages and we fix them back.  Everyone knows that mechanical devices from time to time sometimes breakdown, sometimes they don’t work, sometimes you need to maintain and fix them.”

Commenting on the alleged no love lost between him and the National Assembly on budget related matters, Fashola said there was no feud between him and the legislators, adding that if there was any disagreement, it was in the overall interest of the country.

He said:  “There is no problem between me as an individual and the National Assembly. And let me make that very clear.  Many of the senators and honourable members are my personal friends, and so you don’t fight your friends.

“But we have a disagreement. And the context of that disagreement, you will remember when President Muhammadu Buhari   launched the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, he had enormous support from the leadership of the National Assembly. So it means that we all agreed there is a problem.