Mele Kyari: FG has paid over N200bn to power sector to improve supply

Mele Kyari, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), says the federal government has paid N200 billion to the power sector towards improving electricity supply.

Kyari disclosed the payment during a session with journalists after a meeting with Saleh Mamman, the minister of power, and Usman Mohammed, managing director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

“Actually the federal government has made payment of over N200 billion for power in the last 23 days and this will go a long way to ensure that issues around power supply are addressed. We will work as a team to ensure that all issues are settled,” NAN quoted him to have said.

“This also means that Nigerians will get better access to power during this lockdown period and going forward. There are issues around power supply process and we have discussed most of them and we are moving as a team to make sure that we resolve issues around payment and evacuation.

“We are very confident that this will get the desired result. We will visit some power plants tomorrow to make sure that we sort out any issue to ensure that Nigerians have access to better power.”

Speaking on the reason for the meeting, Mohammed, the TCN managing director, said the meeting was to ensure constant power supply during the lockdown period.

“This is why this meeting was convened by the minister of power to discuss the supply of gas to the power plants; this is very important. Before now, we have been discussing with NNPC; of course there is gas availability in the market but there are several power plants that don’t have gas and that is a big problem for us,” he said.

The TCN boss said the minister has prevailed on the NNPC to assist in supplying gas to power plants to ensure steady power supply going forward.