- In a recent interview, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele weighed in on the issue of electricity tariffs, saying that Nigerians must be prepared to pay more for electricity.
- When asked for his opinion on the on the push for electricity tariff hike, he said: “for you to have good electricity supply, you need to pay a little more”.
“What we are saying, is, even if you have to pay a little more so that you can throw away your generator, pay a little more so that you can have more electricity, and I think it is worth it. These are some of the policies that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is putting in place to support what is called the Cost Reflective Tariff. But I can assure everybody that whatever that cost reflective tariff turns out to be, it will still be substantially lower than the N80/kilowatt-hour spent today on our generators”, Emefiele said.
- Emefiele went on to highlight that there have been improvements in generation, although he agreed that wheeling capacity was limited. He also noted that funds were provided to distribution and generating companies, as well as gas firms, but that not all of those funds have been disbursed, because of some issues that needed to be resolved with the NERC, as well as the Nigerian Electricity Bulk Commission.
- He reiterated that discussions about investment into the transmission grid were ongoing and that the CBN would continue to engage with this topic. “Government, realising that the transmission capacity may be hindered, is already taking steps on how to invest in transmission, so as to improve capacity in that area,” he concluded.
