BY CHIDI NKWOPARA
Public power supply in Imo State can be described as anything but stable. So the reality is that a good number of consumers  no longer rely on the services of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to meet their electricity needs.

While the dire situation has made it impossible for most families to cool/preserve their consumables, the business community has witnessed dwindling profits. From the roadside metal worker to the big industrialist, it is a sad tale of huge losses.

Addressing the issue in a telephone interview, National Vice President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, Enugu Zone, Dr. Frank S.U Jacobs, lamented that the “power situation is worse than it has ever been”.

Jacobs, who owns a brewery in Mgbidi, Oru West Local Council Area of Imo, was particularly irked that public power supply had since become a luxury in the area, lamenting that there had been no public power supply to his factory in the past three weeks.

”The power situation in my area is hopeless. I don’t know what the situation looks like in other areas, but mine is a tale of woe. We have not had power in our factory in the past three weeks, but have been running on diesel-powered electric generating sets,” Jacobs lamented.

In his estimation, cost of production at his factory has increased, and the nation will be worse for it since it is the same with other factories. ”To keep our production lines running, we have had to use diesel on a daily basis. Honestly, we use up to 150 litres of diesel everyday. If you multiply 150 by the prevailing market price of diesel, you will arrive at what my establishment spends daily. This cannot be said to be good for any business concern,” Jacobs reasoned.

While asserting that the extra expenditure was adding to the cost of production, the Zonal MAN boss lamented that it was leaving no room for the local industries to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts: ”This ugly situation does not and can never make our products competitive with the imported ones. Our businesses suffer and most times, the outfit is forced to close shop when costs get prohibitive,” he said.

The brewer therefore appealed to government to match its words with action, stressing that the only way the teeming unemployed youth could be absorbed into the productive sector was through the establishment and sustenance of industrial concerns.

In his own reaction, Apostle Ejike Emereonye who lives in the World Bank Housing Estate, Owerri, observed that PHCN services in the past three years had been nothing to write home about. ”When the light shows up at all, it is usually for a few minutes and this can happen about five times a day. At no time did it last for two hours at a stretch. However, if it lasts for that long, it may be because the intensity of light supplied was lower than a candlelight and this neither rotates the ceiling fan nor operates your television set,” Emereonye fumed.

The fiery pastor opined that there was no family in the World Bank Housing Estate without  a generating set, adding that every night, the entire Estate was as noisy as any industrial enclave: ”No family preserves anything because the freezers are rendered useless. The little money meant for food is sadly spent on petrol. The pain is that the bills keep coming in their thousands. One wonders what the bills are for or how they were arrived at since there are no meters and light rarely comes.”

When contacted, the Senior Manager, Public Affairs, Owerri Business Unit of PHCN, Comrade Franklyn Nwachukwu, said power allocation as at Wednesday, July 24, 2013, stood at 20 megawatts. ”Under normal conditions and when the two generating stations are in operation, we are given up to 80 to 100 megawatts a day,” Nwachukwu explained.

He however expressed regret that in recent times, public power supply had been epileptic, hence the downward trend in generation capacity.

Meantime, it is anybody’s guess when the ugly scenario will improve.Continuing she said, “We had to rely on two generating sets which we alternate to power our business due to the unreliability of PHCN and you can understand the cost implication for us.”

Thomas Olotu, lamented the bulk billing system being allocated to transformer users in some parts of the capital city by the PHCN.

For Rotimi Ajayi who has an ice block-making enterprise at the Azikoro suburb of Yenagoa the erratic state of power supply in the area had impacted negatively on his business.
He said, “Presently I spend over N25,000 on fuel every week, just to ensure that I have products to sell to my customers and at the end of the day, I scarcely make a profit. In fact, if the situation persists, I may be forced to change my line business to one that would be more profitable.”

Another resident Ebiotu Daubei said the state has no business of experiencing black out given its vast gas resources. He urged the government to revive its gas turbine project and explore the available gas fields in the state both at the under developed level and the flared pipeline gas to ensure it generate electricity efficiently to the people of the state and if need be, supply to the national grid through a bulk energy system.

An expert who spoke anonymously blamed the erratic power supply situation in the state partly on poor distribution networks.

He said a situation where a distribution network does not have the capacity to deliver power supply to consumers is a serious problem. The distribution network does not meet the required standard requirement.

BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE,

BENIN

Despite the huge sums of money invested in the nation’s  power sector  by successive administrations, Nigerians are yet to enjoy stable electricity supply. The majority of manufacturing industries in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna, Warri, Sapele and other industrial cities across the country have closed shop in the face of the onslaught, while electric generator dealers have been smiling to the banks.

Since 1999, several Ministers of Power have been appointed to oversee the workings of the PHCN, the organisation saddled with power generation in the country. But none has been able to wave the magic wand that would propel the PHCN to perform.

What could be responsible for the parlous state of power generation in the country? A leader of the Nigeria Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) in the MidWest Zone, Benson Okorodudu, blamed the situation on the activities of militants in the Niger Delta. “As it is now, we are experiencing a fall in power generation due to the activities of militants in the Niger Delta who tamper with gas lines supplying fuel to different power plants. As I speak with you, this has affected Egbin Power Plant in Lagos, Omotosho, Geregu in Kogi State, Afam 6 in Rivers State and the newly installed NIPP. We lost over 1,500 megawatts to the activities of the militants and this is grossly affecting power generation,” he said.

On his part, Principal Public Relations Manager, PHCN Benin Distribution Company Limited, Tunde Fadipe, said the Minister of Power, Professor Nebo, was on air recently to explain to Nigerians that the power sector lost over 1000 megawatts to vandalism, noting  that it was a fundamental issue because there would be no power supply without  generation.

He explained that since power generated was fed into the national grid, availability of power to each station depended on what was allocated to  the National Transmission Company of Nigeria at Oshogbo.

Asked for his opinion, Emeyounu Adibe, a consumer  in Benin, said “the state of the power sector in Nigeria is a big embarrassment to Nigeria as a country. There is no excuse that Nigeria, which prides itself as the giant of Africa 50 years after independence, still wallows in darkness due to inefficiency as far as the power sector is concerned.

“Again, if the Nigerian government right from 1960 till date had recognised the power sector as key to economic development and growth, it would have done more than it has done and is still doing today. It is a shame that a country of over 160 million people with huge human and material resources cannot boast of stable power supply.”

Another consumer, Pius Osemwengie, said there had been no improvement in power supply in Edo, adding that “what we are getting is a state of confusion in terms of increase in electricity tariff. I remember when it was called ECN, electricity supply was stable and everything was working. But today we are not getting value for  what we are paying for because the power is not there. We have not improved in any way. The only thing we have improved, if at all, is revenue generation for PHCN.”