The price of darkness (2)

There is no doubt that Nigerians have become exasperated and embarrassed at the inability of their country to generate enough electricity for private and commercial use. Definitely, this situation is leaving the citizens despondent and helpless. The irony becomes more painful especially when it is realised that Nigeria has an abundance of resources to generate enough electricity to cater for the increasing needs of a growing economy. It bears repeating that the country is paying a very steep price for this disability. It is therefore not surprising that such diminished capacity has been exerting a negative toll on the overall economy, which continues to languish at the fringes of technological development.  Nigerians have not forgotten the promise by the immediate past Jonathan administration to increase the total generated electricity to 10,000 megawatts (MW) by 2014. Two years after, rather to increase, the power capacity has been dwindling at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is costing the country dearly in financial terms. Experts and commentators believe the arrested state of development is forcing majority of businesses and individuals to resort to generators for power supply with attendant operational and maintenance costs.
However, such alternative comes with lot of negative externalities to both individuals and the environment, especially given the loud noise and nauseating fumes that emanate from these generators.  According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), up to 40 percent of production costs in the country goes towards electricity supply. Ironically, then, fixing the price and profitability of power does not just create shortfalls in supply but in aggregate, results in some of the most expensive electricity in the world; which most Nigerian’s can scarcely afford. Painfully, an average Nigerian consumes just eight per cent of the electricity used by a Brazilian and four per cent of that of a South African. More perplexing is that more than half of the nation’s 176 million people are not connected to the national electricity grid.
Investigations as well as studies put the annual spending on the purchase of petrol and diesel for running generators at a whopping N3.5trillion, amounting to N17.5tn in the five years under former President Goodluck Jonathan. This is in addition to about N2trillion spent on running generators by thousands of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, banks, other corporate entities and traders across the country.
For example, with over 6,133 banks’ branches and each spending N4m on diesel a month, N48m will go down the drain in a year and this will amount to N294.4bn per annum across all the branches. This is outside the amount spent on powering ATM points located outside banking premises and maintaining the generators, among other critical banking infrastructure. At the federal level, over 542 Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) also have supplementary generators, which are switched on whenever public power supply is cut.  Estimates put the cost of fuelling generators on an annual basis close to the national budget.
It is estimated that the cost of supplying power through generators is at least four times the cost of a reliable power supply. In addition, self-generation of power also increases the rate at which start-up businesses fail as several of these businesses spend much of their revenues on buying fuel to run their businesses. Until the authorities realise the importance of electricity consumers would continue to groan, while the rank of generator merchants continue to grow at the detriment of the economy.