Minister of Power, Alhaji Saleh Mamman, said the Federal Government cannot pay electricity bill for all Nigerians for two months as a palliative for the lockdown to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
The Minister disclosed the sad news to BBC Hausa in an interview published on its twitter handle @bbchausa.
Said the Minister, “this matter has not been concluded yet. We are only looking at the possibility of doing so.
“You see this power supply; the first thing we do when the government declared this lockdown because of COVID-19 is to ensure there is a stable power supply for people to be more comfortable staying at home.
“You see there are first, those generating this power, then those transmitting it as well as those distributing the power to various household.
“Those generating this power are private business people that own all of their equipment and it is strictly business”, he stressed.
The Minister also mentioned other hitches to Government-paid electricity supply to Nigerians.
Said he, “if you talk about paying the electricity bill for citizens, the first question you ask is who are those that fall under the category of beneficiaries? “You know we have over 80 million people who don’t have access to electricity in Nigeria and we have over 200 million Nigerians so if you decided to pay a bill for 120 million people, the question is who are you paying for? Those privileged people in Maitama, Victoria Island and other highbrow areas or those with companies and doing businesses and making profits while you abandoned the less privilege who don’t even have access to the electricity.
“You see this free electricity bill will be paid with taxpayers’ money and you want to serve the interest of the privileged Nigerians, then the less privilege and the vulnerable what are going to do for them? He queried.
Mamman stressed that it will be a very difficult task for the government to pay the two-month electricity bill for citizens, stressing that putting the bill together will amount to over 100 billion naira.
He added that, “every month, what we pay as electricity bill, I mean what the distribution company are paying with the little support from government is a little above fifty billion naira monthly.
Alhaji Mamman said he has explained to members of the National Assembly who initiated the idea of free electricity for Nigerians citizens and if they insisted, they should come up with ideas to go about the action”, the Minister insisted.