Minister of Power of State for Power, Hajiya Zainaib Ibrahim Kuchi, has assured that power generation in the country would peak at 10,000 megawatts by the end of December 2014. According to her the power generation increase would translate to between 17 and 18 hours of power supply in the country.
Kuchi stated this while briefing journalists, shortly after they appeared before the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to give an update on the achievements of the ministry. Responding to questions on the time line for increased power generation she said: "In 2014, we envisage 10,000 mega watts. God willing with our short term, long term and immediate strategies that we have in the ministry working assiduously with all the other stakeholders in the power sector we envisage that.
"With all the other NIPP work going on and the Niger Delta Power Company coming up and to be commissioned by December 2013, we look forward to 10, 000 megawatts come December 2014. And this is what we are working towards. If we succeed making it more than that we are very happy people.
"But we are focused on actually delivering 10,000 megawatts by 2014. And this by our calculations and data we have on ground, we give at least between 17 and 18 hours of power supply to Nigerians.
The 24 hours power supply will happen but we are working steadily towards that." She said a committee was set up the by the ministry to address the problem of system collapse. "We had 15, all put together and this was cause by act of God not by act of man, because when the shrubs grew too high, they actually affect the transmission line.
"So what we are doing about that is mechanised system of addressing the issues of making such that the transmission lines are cut so that system collapse can be minimised because 75 percent or 72 percent of the cause for system collapse was the shrubs that was affecting transmission lines. This we are working very hard to address," she said.
