By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, Thursday said the Federal Government would meet with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, and electricity distribution companies, DisCos, over the opposition of manufacturers to the new electricity tariff.

The government had in April through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, increased tariff for Band-A customers from N68/kWh to N209/kWh with a guaranteed minimum of 20 hours of power supply daily.

But manufacturers opposed the increment saying it would escalate production cost and put most of them out of business. Since then, the manufacturers have engaged the DisCos in a running battle following the decision of utilities to disconnect the factories from their network.

Briefing journalists at the end of a meeting with the leadership of the DisCos and heads of government agencies in the sector, Chief Adelabu said the government was determined to achieve the 6,000 megawatts target by the end of the year.

He said: “We also acknowledged the current face-off with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria in terms of resistance to the new tariff regime, which we believe is the way to go. We have to sustain even manufacturing activities in Nigeria. And what we have decided is to engage them further in terms of meeting with them as a team and let us discuss the meeting on the middle ground. I believe this issue will be a thing of the past, soon”.

Chief Adelabu said the Ministry was also working to ensure that the huge electricity debts owed by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of government were paid up to improve the financial state of the electricity industry.

“We’re working on metering, we’re working on transmission lines to ensure that this supports the 6,000 mega target for 2024 December. Then the issue of NDAs debt, which we believe is a major burden on the discourse and it affects the liquidity. We have discussed this extensively”, he stated.

On the recent attempts by government agencies at the Federal and State levels to intimidate DisCos which are asking for their money, the Minister said he was working behind the scene to ensure that DisCos operate without intimidation.

“We are intentional in our actions to ensure that every business unit across all the segments in the power sector value chain operates seamlessly without fear of intimidation, frustration, or victimization. The steps we are taking are internal and are not really meant for the media. These are internal issues that we are fast resolving, and I believe that by the time you see the results of all these interventions, you will be happy that we are handling it the way it should be handled.

“We don’t want to escalate it. We don’t want to aggravate it by throwing it to the media and subject it to a court of public opinion. We are handling it internally, and I’m optimistic it will be resolved”, he explained.