By Seun Ibiyemi
The Federal Government has ruled out any plan to increase electricity tariffs, saying its priority is to improve power supply and address structural challenges affecting the sector.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this on Monday at a media parley in Abuja, where he assured electricity consumers that the administration was not considering additional tariff increases.
“Let me categorically state, and this is not a political statement, we have no plan to increase electricity tariffs,” Tegbe said.
The minister said the President Bola Tinubu administration was focused on strengthening the electricity sector and improving supply rather than imposing additional financial burdens on consumers.
Tegbe said that when President Tinubu appointed him as Minister of Power, he made four commitments to Nigerians: adopting a disciplined approach to solving the sector’s challenges, pursuing grid stability through strategic reforms, delivering visible improvements and addressing structural constraints across the electricity value chain.
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According to the minister, an assessment of the power sector after his assumption of office revealed challenges across virtually every segment of the electricity value chain.
He said inadequate gas supply remained a major constraint to power generation, partly due to damaged pipelines and commercial terms that had discouraged investment in the gas-to-power segment.
Tegbe also said Nigeria’s generation fleet remained heavily dependent on thermal power plants, many of which were affected by ageing equipment, deferred maintenance and stalled projects.
He noted that available generation capacity could not be fully delivered to electricity consumers because of the challenges across the sector.
The minister further disclosed that electricity generation companies were receiving only about 27 per cent of their bills, a situation he said had weakened their ability to maintain generating plants and meet payment obligations to gas suppliers.
According to him, resolving the financial and operational challenges across the electricity value chain remains central to the administration’s efforts to achieve greater grid stability and improve electricity supply.
Tegbe said the government would continue to pursue structured reforms aimed at addressing the sector’s underlying problems while working towards visible improvements in power delivery.
