Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos state has said plans are ongoing to provide constant power supply to all homes and businesses in the state by the end of 2018.
Speaking recently at an interactive session with members of the business community and informal sector, the governor said the state government has devised policies and strategies to short-circuit power generation, transmission and distribution to ensure constant power supply to the people of the state.
The governor in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Habib Aruna on Sunday said the state government is also in talks with electricity distribution companies operating in the state to see possibility of supplying uninterrupted power to residents.
Ambode said the legal framework to prevent power theft and also legitimize the concept of power generation had already been sent to the State House of Assembly for approval.
“Presently, we have less than 1,000MW in Lagos and the fundamental issues remain with generation, transmission and then distribution. In Lagos State, we have become creative and we have done Independent Power Project (IPP) before through which we were able to generate 47.5MW which was distributed short-circuiting transmission.
“If the law allows you to have independent power and going through the regulatory commission then you are smart enough to do that. The only thing we have done is to get permission from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to create clusters of embedded power in our State and if we are able to do it, we become a test case for the rest of the economy,” he said.
On the collaboration with electricity distribution companies, Governor Ambode said the state government is willing to stand as the guarantor for the people to get 24/7 power supply.
“The generator that people are using is extremely expensive and what we are saying is that can we work with all these stakeholders and push the tariff for example from N20 to maybe N40 but guarantee the people of 24/7 power.
“That is what we are trying to do; we become the guarantor on behalf of Lagosians and then if all those things work out, by this time next year, people will have constant power supply. As a government, we are strongly committed to power freedom; we want to free ourselves from darkness and we want to open up the sector for more investors,” he said.
