Adelabu: Zungeru power plant will begin operation before end of November

Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, says the Zungeru hydropower plant will begin operation before the end of November.

Adelabu spoke on Wednesday in Abuja during an interactive session with journalists.

The federal government had said the $1.2 billion Zungeru hydropower dam project, constructed in Niger, would be ready for inauguration by the first quarter (Q1) of 2023.

But the minister gave a new deadline, saying the “Zungeru hydropower is ready”.

“The concession has also been approved by Mr President. So we will start operating Zungeru probably before the end of this month,” Adelabu said.

“The only thing left in Zungeru is just to complete the rest of the evacuation infrastructure so that the entire 700MW can be evacuated into the transmission grid.

“As it is today, the structure and infrastructure we have there can only evacuate about 300 megawatts so Zungeru is ready as an addition to our power generating capacity, I can confirm that to you.”

Meanwhile, Adelabu said the federal government is working to review the licences of electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and generation companies (GenCos).

He said the ministry has also ordered an investigation into the extension of the licenses for GenCos and DisCos by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

“The licenses I saw were for 10 years (2013 to 2023). But along the line, it was the vice chairman of the Commission told me that before their tenure, the Commission had extended the licenses for another five years,” he said.

“The correctness of that legally and contractually, we are trying to review it. We have also ordered an investigation into their extension of the licenses if they were actually in order.

“But the license is not as important as the performance bond that we signed with the private sector operators. Irrespective of the tenure of the license, a license can be revoked at any time.

“So, it is not very important whether the license has been extended for another decade or not, if you are not meeting the conditions in the performance bond, all I need is to pay you and get the licence back from you.

“We are in the process of doing that; the performance bond expired in 2017 and was due in 2019. It was reviewed for another two years. So, it expired in 2021.”

Adelabu said the ministry intends to have a meeting with power sector operators in the generation and distribution segments to agree on a new practical and realistic performance bond which they must meet.

Adelabu said the federal government had commenced further investigation into the extension of the licenses by the previous administration and the immediate past administration of NERC.

‘FG SHOULD COMMERCIALISE, NOT PRIVATISE DISCOS, GENCOS’ 

The minister said instead of privatising the GenCos and DisCos, the government should commercialise the firms.

“Today, government holds about 40 per cent of the DisCos, I am telling you that is enough chunk for government to take control,” he said.

Adelabu said with the investments the government has pumped into the distribution network, “if we have been capitalising those investments, we will be having a higher portion of the equity ownership of the DisCos”.