National Assembly was thrown into a momentary blackout when power went off while the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, was making his speech.
The minister was responding to questions from senators at the investigative hearing on “the need to halt the increase in the price of electricity” organised by the Senate Committee on Power on Monday.
SaharaReporters had reported that the Senate Committee on Power invited Adelabu and the heads of agencies under the ministry to an investigative hearing on the new electricity tariffs.
Adelabu had also during a briefing in Abuja said that the recent increase in electricity tariff is a pilot in phasing out of electricity subsidy in the country.
According to the minister, the government plans to remove all subsidies in the sector to allow the thriving of investment in the power sector.
On Monday, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, while reacting to the power outage, said what the minister said about the stable electricity in the country was implicative.
The minister quickly responded by saying, “You see what just happened. This is what we all experience. We the Senators experience it too and I am sure even the President does experience it at the Villa, just that he cannot speak out like we are.”
SaharaReporters had also reported that Adelabu claimed that the country needs to invest the sum of 10 billion dollars yearly, to revive the power sector for the next 10 years.
He said that “For this sector to be revived, the government needs to spend nothing less than 10 billion dollars annually in the next 10 years.
“This is because of the Infrastructure requirement for the stability of the sector, but the government can not afford that.
Recall that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had on April 3, approved an increase of 340% in electricity tariff for customers under the Band A classification.
The NERC’s Vice Chairman, Musliu Oseni, said that Band A customers will begin to pay N225 kilowatt per hour from the current N66, while Band B and A customers are to enjoy 20 hours of electricity supply daily.
