The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has advised the federal government to privatise the national grid to address the recurring collapses.
Director-general of LCCI, Chinyere Almona, in a expresent titled, “Finding a Lasting Solution to the Frequent National Grid Collapse,” expressed concern over the persistent instability of the grid.
She lamented that Nigeria has recorded eight grid failures in 2024 alone, three of which occurred within a single week.
Almona described the national grid’s deteriorating performance as a matter of serious concern for the business community.
“With businesses suffering from the burden of poor power supply, we need quick intervention actions to salvage the situation.
“We urge the government to consider the privatisation of the national grid and support more efforts to scale up metering in the coming months.
“Currently, the national grid only generates about 4,500MW of electricity for over 200 million people. Meanwhile, South Africa generates about 50,000MW of electricity to service about 59 million people,” the LCCI DG said.
Continuing, Almona stated that after about 105 collapses in 10 years, power sector stakeholders are expected to know what drives these recurring failures and how to prevent them.
She, however, lamented that “We are troubled by the apparent lack of such understanding among regulators in the power sector.”
The LCCI DG, therefore, urged the government to remain committed to ongoing power sector reforms, particularly in meeting metering targets.
Almona highlighted the potential economic benefits of a stable national grid, including reduced production costs for businesses, enhanced competitiveness of Nigerian products in international markets, and increased foreign exchange earnings from electricity exports to neighbouring countries.
“The 2023 Annual Report of NERC showed that international bilateral customers from countries, such as Niger, Benin, and Togo, made a total payment of $50.36 million to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) for electricity distribution in 2023,” she said.
