The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, has appealed for the minister of power Adebayo Adelabu’s intervention following the disconnection of various Nigerian Army barracks and cantonments by power distribution companies (DisCos) over N42bn electricity debt.
The Army chief made the appeal when he visited the minister of Power in Abuja, where the minister told him that the debt would only be restructured but not written off.
Describing the blackouts in Army barracks and cantonments as security risks, Lt.-Gen. Lagbaja also revealed that the blackouts in barracks had led to the decomposition of corpses in Army Hospital mortuaries, a development that had warranted protests by family members of the deceased.
Adelabu assured the Nigerian Army of his readiness to dialogue with power Distribution Companies to relieve the Nigerian Army of its electricity debt burden amounting to N42 billion.
The minister reiterated the importance of liquidity and funding in the sector, adding the debts could not be written off but he will intervene in order to restructure the debt payment if there was assurance of regular payment by the Nigerian Army.
Adelabu further revealed that debt owed DisCos and Generating Companies (GENCOs) was not the only challenge bedevilling the power sector, he added that vandalisation of power infrastructure which often lead to National Grid collapse, theft, inefficiency in billing and collection process, poor metering gap, liquidity, shortage in gas supply, transmission stations being blown up with explosives in volatile areas are all part of the issues being experienced in the power sector.
“The fundamental issues in the power sector value chain could be traced back to the last 50 years and a government which is barely eight months cannot use a magic wand to proffer solutions. There is a saying that you won’t know what is happening in Rome until you get to Rome,” he said.
Adelabu, who acknowledged that power outages were not peculiar to Army barracks but a national issue, said the DISCOs and GENCOs are profit-oriented organisations and “we can only plead with them to adopt a repayment plan on a monthly basis instead of embedding the whole debt in their meter.
While encouraging the Army to continue assisting the Ministry in safeguarding power facilities across the nation, the Minister pledged to seek collaboration for the Army through any of the development partners for installation of Solar PVs and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) as alternative power supply in Army barracks and cantonments.”
Earlier, the Chief of Army Staff disclosed that the main reason for the visit was to discuss the consequences of the power outage in Army formations and the way forward.
Lagbaja regretted that some barracks and cantonments since January have been in total blackout.
“Debt owed is loaded on the meter, so no matter the amount of credit we put, the meters pick it automatically . Corpses in the Army mortuaries are decomposing and the owners of the corpses are protesting,” he stated.
He further stated that it is impossible for the Army to raise funds to pay the entire debt and solicited for liquidation as was done in 2005 by the then President.
He assured the Minister of the Army’s unflinching support towards developing intelligence strategies in curbing the menace of electricity infrastructure vandalism.
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