Engineer Etido Inyang is the Special Adviser to Governor Udom Emmanuel on Power and is also the chairman of the board of Ibom Power Plant. In this interview with Correspondents in Uyo he maintained that the state remained on course to achieve 24 hours power supply by 2019. He also x-rays the current challenges confronting power distribution in Nigeria. EMEKA SAMUEL was there for Nigerian Pilot Weekend.
Give us an overview of the activities of the Ibom power plant?
When people say that they don’t have power it does not mean that full
Power was not supplied; the point is that the power is being supplied and it stops at certain areas so it is important that infrastructures are put in place to ensure that power is taken from point A to point B so that those other people will not be in darkness. So that is why his, Excellency, Udom Emmanuel, is busy making sure that all the communities in the state have power, there are some places in this state that have never seen electricity. Take for example, a place like Ikot Abasi has been off for a long time. It was discovered that since the inception of that village there was no power or electricity but Gov. Emmanuel has been able to give them power and by this May ending Ibom power is going to commission it. Also Ekim substation 2/60MVA, we are working assiduously with Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, through the vision of his Excellency and collaboration with the federal government. Hopefully by the end of this month, the substation will be ready. We will be tapping power from the station to the various local government areas in the state especially, Ikot Abasi, Nkpat Enin, Onnah Oruk Anam and Eket. These five local governments will feed from Ekim. So the governor is providing power strategically in order to achieve his five point agenda which are anchored on economic and political inclusion, infrastructural development and expansion, wealth creation and job creation poverty alleviation. I hope you must have heard about ‘Power for all’. This is born out of his vision in ensuring that various communities and entrepreneurs in the state have power to develop their businesses. That is why we ensure that substation, transformers, restringing even new lines are provided where they are needed in communities. Another thing is that we are proposing to take power to industrial hubs in 2019. Uyo has an industrial hub at Itam which we all know, Ikot Abasi and Ikot Ekpene also have theirs of course when we say Akwa Ibom is a power hub there is a lot of willing of power from Ikot
Ekpene, power comes from Alaoji through Ikot Ekpene so there is a plan to drop 2/60MVA to take care of Ikot Ekpene, Ini, Ikono up to Ukanafun that so by the time Governor Emmanuel finishes in 2023 you will agree with me that the whole of Akwa Ibom state will be ringed up. When “Power for all” initiative is achieved this 2018, definitely by 2019 a lot of companies will relocate to Akwa Ibom because of the Importance of having constant power supply. Those in Ewet housing will tell you currently that after the commissioning of Afaha ube substation they are having an average of 20hrs power supply in a day. But in a situation where people tapping power from Afahaube who do not have that number of hour’s means that something is wrong with their transformers.
Sir we learnt that transmission of power is not within the role of
State governments, but the state government is embarking on that, so is there any plan by federal government or PHEDC to refund the money expended?
There is no plan for that. They are of two. TCN is of the federal
Government while PHEDC is of private investor but this private
Investor has partnership with the federal government; State government has only 10percent of that on that deal. They have several issues on that deal. Akwa Ibom government is proactive in this aspect, if we want to wait for PHEDC or federal government, everybody will be in darkness. The transformers are bad and the federal government is not providing them so the state government is intervening, it is like this inter-ministerial, state government is intervening in schools like wise in power so this is not expected to be collected by the state government. Meanwhile TCN is in collaboration with us, in that if they are providing the equipment, we provide the civil works. But if we decide to leave it solely for federal government; Yes federal government might do it but it may take them 5years or 2years.
What about the issue of Debt by DISCOS to GENCOS and Ibom power is not an exception so what are you doing because if they continue to owe, Power will no longer be generated?
This is a very serious issue. You know Gencos have taken the federal
Government to court over huge debts and I will not like to comment on that but Gencos have not been paid in their invoices and we receive as low as 22 percent from the federal government that can be published anywhere though there was an intervention in that area where the federal government provided N701b into the sector and that has assuaged to an extent. We still receive 22percent but they are taking care of the gas component which will exist till December this year so after that we don’t know what will happen next. Another thing is that Discos are doing the collectibles and it is declaring its 32percent. And PHEDC is complaining that it is not getting enough to what it is supplying, there are lots of reports about power theft, people use this power without willing to pay for it so we have decided to hang some meters on the pole to monitor the power that is consumed in the pole because some people tap light without taking it through the meter. It is not only PHEDC but all the distribution companies,
(Discos). It has been a national problem and the current administration is not fixing the problem.
So what is the solution?
No solution for now but we are hoping that the Minister for power and those at the centre, are working out the policy that will take us out of here. In Nigeria we might be producing 67000 megawatts of power and only 40000 are being evacuated that is another major area. Government that is TCN should come up with intervention policy. It is solely the responsibility of TCN to evacuate power. This is what should be done and if not so Nigeria will still remain in darkness. Being in darkness does not only mean not having light to see your way but the effect it has on industrialization. The youths not engaged because of lack of industries. Industries are not in Nigeria because investors are not encouraged with the state of power. When they look at their feasibility studies, they discover that they cannot break even by running generators so Nigeria is not a major destination for that.
When you see his Excellency Udom Emmanuel attracting investors it is with hard negotiations. That is why he is succeeding because they have seen the plan for ‘’Power for all’’ that the governor is passionate about providing power. Power is the major issue when it comes to industrialization. So Nigeria has to stand up. We need to fix our power before we talk of industrialization that will take on the teeming youths. So when you talk about industrialization power is very major, that is why Gov Udom sleeps, wakes up and think about power
So how are you sure that after investing so much in power that Akwa
Ibom government will be able to push industrialization agenda without the Federal Government frustrating their efforts.
This is why you must have the good will, first of all, goodwill of the
Federal government because it is in the exclusive list of the federal
Government and of course for Gov. Udom to do what he is doing; there are a lot of collaborative efforts. We are in constant discussion with
TCN, PHEDC, Permanent Secretary of power and the Minister of power, there is a serious understanding within these collaborations sometimes when it needs signing up MoUs we don’t hesitate to do that. So immediately we deploy the transformers you see the effect immediately on the community so that should not be taken away.
The state generates more than it can even consume yet we still have epileptic power supply. Is it as a result of infrastructural decay?
Yes it is an infrastructural decay. I can show you from my phone whatever that is supplied in a day. I have a stream of what is sent out when we are down it shows that we are down with power and when it is put on the grid it goes anywhere so what we are doing now is to string or rim fence what we need to retain here you could imagine the day we commissioned the substation at Afahaube it was reported by TCN that what they have running in that station was over a hundred megawatts but what was taken by PHEDC was about twenty something megawatts then PHEDC will complain that people are not paying, the infrastructure to where they are sending it to is not taking it, so it becomes a problem so you see that the state government is doing a lot to take power to the people and promised to ensure 20hours of power a day before going to 24hrs but the infrastructure, the office of the Special Adviser on power is taking statistics of those areas, people can still come up now and say we are not enjoying power but when we get through power for all when it is reinforced, all the infrastructures ,substations and transformers provided at different areas and lines that is when we say the governor has achieved this vision.
So when are we expecting that?
We are still working on it and his Excellency’s vision is that it will be sometime in 2019 but it is going to be in phases. There are people in Uyo metropolis that do not have power due to lack or bad transformers or even stringing, so we are looking at Uyo, Ikotabasi, Eket, Ikot Ekpene, ONNA, Oron, because of industries situated there which you must take power to, around six major cities will be done first, then we move into other local governments but within a year of its commencement we will complete the others.
The 2nd phase of Ibom power is coming up and we know some investors from China came, when will it take off?
You know when we came in we said we were working on 2nd phase, we are still working on second phase but this is majorly an aspect you know you cannot do without the federal government. We have a gap of
500MWA for anybody who wants to bring in power, number one we have to look at the feasibility, when once you have the 500MW you will be able to pump out. There is a project that is coming to Ibom power to evacuate power, that line will be able to evacuate 1200MW so if you take out 500MW we are left with 700MW and 500MW will be consumed by QIPP the new power station, so we still have an allowance of 200MW for any other company that is coming in, so there is provision for evacuation for the 2nd Phase, the issue now is federal government having issues with provision of sovereign guarantee that backs up the Power Purchase Agreement PPA, so for anybody that is coming in with 500mw of power, you have a minimum of $500m dollars to invest by the rule of ton it could be 1million per megawatt so for you to bring 500m dollars to invest you need a guarantee and power purchase agreement which every serious investor needs and there is what we call a lacuna in the industry presently that people are looking for PPA because PPA is backed up by sovereign guarantee and federal government is not ready to give out that sovereign guarantee for now but we are marking time with the investors that are with us. There are discussions ongoing but when once that clarity is being given, we will be able to go into our 2phase.
We have distribution of meters where is it coming from?
Around 40000 pre paid meters are being distributed but by the new metering company located at ONNA. This is part of the efforts of Governor Emmanuel to improve on the quality of service to electricity consumers in the state.