The Managing Director/CEO, Century Power Generation Ltd, Dr. Chukwueloka Umeh has said that the total deregulation of the power sector will motivate investors to put money into all areas of the broken value-chain which will ensure that consumers enjoy quality power supply.
Dr. Umeh who was speaking at a virtual media roundtable on the power sector in Nigeria called for total deregulation of the sector which must include the adoption of cost-reflective tariff regime.
He said this is the only way power Distribution Companies (DisCos) can attract the needed investment that will improve present infrastructure. He argued that cost reflective tariffs also have a positive ripple effect on the power Generating companies (GenCos).
The Century Power boss said government’s role in the power sector should be limited to setting the regulations that would attract investment into the sector and not regulations stifling it.
He added that poor infrastructure is affecting the operating capacity of the DisCos which was why a large percentage of 200 million Nigerians are not included in the current national grid network, adding that out of the 9 million registered customers across the 11 DisCo networks in the country, only about half of them have meters.
Dr Umeh commended government’s initiative in allowing private firms provide meters for consumers as this has allowed the Discos focus primarily on their core business.
He however added that total deregulation which would attract more players into the sector as evident in the telecom.The implementation of a new tariff by the electricity distribution companies was recently put on hold, a situation he said elongated epileptic power supply in the country.