Nigerians have been advised to brace up for further increments in electricity tariffs, addressing an audience at a briefing in Abuja on Friday, Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, highlighted that the recent uptick in electricity tariffs is a test phase towards eliminating electricity subsidies in the country.
He mentioned that the government intends to eliminate all subsidies in the industry to encourage increased investment in the power sector.
The Minister said: “This tariff review conforms with our policy thrust of maintaining a subsidized pricing regime in the short run or the short term with a transition plan to achieve a full cost reflective tariff for throughout, let us say three years. I have mentioned in a couple of media briefings that it is because of government sensitivity to the pains of our people that we will not make us migrate fully into a cost-reflective tariff or remove subsidy 100 percent in the power sector like it was done in the oil and gas sector.”
“We are not ready to aggravate the sufferings any longer which is why we said it must be a journey rather than a destination and the journey starts from now on, that we should do a gradual migration from the subsidy regime to a full cost-reflective regime and we must begin with some customers.
“This is more like a pilot for us at the Ministry of Power and our agencies. It is like a proof of concept that those that have the infrastructure sufficient enough to deliver stable power of enjoying 20 hours of light to be the ones to get tariff add.”
“The government would have paid N2.9tr for 2024. This is more than 10 percent of the national budget. It will be insensitive on our part to compel the government to pay such subsidy when we have other competing issues the government needs to fund under pau its of funds we have.”
