Victor Udo is the Managing Director of Ibom Power Company and Senior Special Assistant to Akwa Ibom State Governor on power. The company has since commenced power generation from its facilities in Ikot Abasi. There is a marked improvement in power supply to consumers in the state but a lot remains to be achieved. In this interview with ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, he speaks on issues affecting the power sector, why consumers still experience power outages and what the distribution companies should do. Excerpts.
What is responsible for the improvement in power supply in Akwa Ibom State?
Governor Udom Emmanuel has taken the issue of power supply as a priority and is personally directly involved to make sure Akwa Ibom people have steady power supply. Since his assumption of office, there is no day that there is no power supply in the state because Ibom Power Company is running. In fact it has been running in the last 70 days. Even when there is a national outage Ibom Power still runs, that shows that the Governor has done well. We are very proud the plant is run by Akwa Ibom people. As far as generation is concerned, we are very comfortable with what we are doing. We might have few disgruntled employees but we managing that. On the generation side, we are comfortable. Transmission is a problem because there is no work centre here in Akwa Ibom State. The personnel are not around here to fix simple problems. The biggest problem we have right now is distribution. Most of the generating companies are not taking load. It is not Akwa Ibom problem. It is not peculiar to Akwa Ibom State. Even though we have enough power generated, the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) is not taking load andin that case; it goes to the national grid. That is on the problem side.
On the solution side, the Governor is working hard; we are supporting him to make sure we get to the issue of why PHED is not taking load. Once we can deal with that, the governor has plans, once we resolve that, our people will have steady power supply and it will be sustained. It is not rocket science. It is not a brain surgery. We have power now, we have enough generation. We are working hard to make sure transmission and distribution issues are addressed. Clearly, the governor is focused on it so that there will be enough power for industrialisation and development.
But there are still power outages, what could be responsible for this?
The distributing companies are not connecting people, in electricity; you have to be connected to get electricity. Two reasons are responsible for not connecting people. One is poor technical operation and the second is a commercial issue. The commercial issue is that they only want to give power to those who can pay so they can connect them. Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) has not figured out the best way to collect revenue. So the smaller they take power from the grid, the better. In their best interest, the smaller they take from the grid to give to the people. So it is better for them not to connect a lot of people who do not think they will be able to pay, the better. So that is the commercial issue. The technical issue is being able to manage the network properly which they hardly do and the Akwa Ibom Governor is putting pressure on them to do exactly that because when they took over the system from government, they were committed to doing that, that was why it was privatised. The recent improvement we have seen in the state was a direction intervention of the state governor. We are going to do our best to make sure it is sustained. The way the industry is structured ensures that there is a bulk trader that buys directly from the generating companies.
What is your relationship with PHED?
No relationship. What happens is that the distribution company now buys from the bulk trader and puts it on the national grid. Now in between those two agencies, there is a transmission company, so the Transmission Company is the one we relate with directly. Once we produce in Ikot Abasi, we put in on the transmission system and whenever it goes is a non issue for Ibom power.
Is it possible that Ibom Power can produce electricity without it being supplied to consumers in Akwa Ibom State?
Yes, that is what happens. If PHED does not connect people, the power goes on the national grid to whoever takes the load. For Ibom Power, we are paid on how much we generate. So the more people connect whether it is done by PHED or in Enugu, as long as they take the load, they will pay us on how we produce. It is not PHED that pays us. It is Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company, they are the ones that take power, sign a contract with the generating company. So the power generated is sold to them, they in turn sell it to the distribution company.
Why is the distribution company not taking it directly from the producing company?
They can do so but they don’t have the balance sheet. Because you cannot store power, you have to have money to make sure that once I produce, you are ready to pay for it. We are being owed as at now because distribution companies are not doing very well.
The issue of gas shortage has been a recurring decimal, how is Ibom Power dealing with this?
Of course we need gas to generate power. Thanks to the former Governor. The gas issue was addressed in 2009. A private company came in to build a gas processing plant, laid a pipeline to Ibom Power Company and signed a long term contract. So in Akwa Ibom, we don’t have gas issue, we don’t have generation issue. Sometimes we have transmission issue. I am very hard on TCN. I have told them they need to build a work centre in Akwa Ibom State.
How is the absence of a work centre affecting power supply?
In other places, they have only two distribution centres and they have a work centre. TCN’s excuse is that they are building a substation in Ikot Ekpene and hoping that when the work is completed, they will start a work centre here but we don’t know when that will be done. Today our people are suffering and we don’t want our people to suffer. There is an injection station that is currently being built. It takes power from 33KV and reduces it to 11KV. Like in Uyo, the distribution network is 11KV. The injection substation takes the power from the 33KV and reduces to 11KV. We need at least two more injection substations in Uyo. This is something PHCN should have done long time ago. In Akwa Ibom, we have four distribution stations, we have one in Ikot Abasi, one in Eket, one in Itu and another in Uyo. There is supposed to be a centre with people and resources to respond to problems. Now when there is a problem, people have to come from Calabar to solve those problems. I have spoken with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
What does it take to have a work centre built in a state?
It is a policy decision of TCN. It is not Akwa Ibom thing. It is TCN issue. It is like having a big company without an office, so people have to come from outside to handle basic issues. The low hanging fruit is the technical and commercial aspects that can be done right away. Electricity is infrastructure such that the more you have people, the more you have to expand. What we used to have ten years ago is not enough for what we need today. And what the government has done is that if you go to most communities, you see electricity transformers requiring more infrastructure upstream to be able to supply power. So the 11KV that was there ten years ago is no longer sufficient to supply power, that is why we need two more injection substations in Akwa Ibom.
Power generation requires skilled manpower, how is Ibom Power faring in this regard?
I have been in Ibom Power in the last one year. I have done a few things that were not done before. I have created a kind of internship programme because I don’t have openings to employ people. There is a training programme for people to have the experience, so that when there is an opening we can observe them. At the power plant, I am okay with that. We have engineers and I believe they can solve most of the problems, but to really do technical and commercial operations we need more hands. It is not rocket science. Some of these things can be done by our technicians and electricians.
Apart from power generation, what other responsibilities are expected from your company?
As the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on power, I do what the Governor tells me to do. There are communities in Ikono and Ini that did not have power for over four years. And the governor felt we should restore power to them and we did. It is not even the responsibility of government to do that because it has been privatised but government felt because of the importance of electricity, from time to time, we intervene that is what we do.
How correct are you to say that say that it is not the responsibility to provide electricity to the people?
Electricity has been privatised. It is like telling the government to provide mobile phone services to the people. Or telling the government to build satellite towers. That is not the work of government because it has been privatised. But government in its good intentions can and does assist communities to have electricity. The truth of the matter is that the distribution companies are supposed to provide communities with energy infrastructure. When government takes over federal roads, we feel that it our people that are using the roads. If communities come together to provide facilities for electricity, they are supposed to get that money back because the distribution company is supposed to do all that and get paid. If they don’t do it and the communities go ahead to do it, then they can get their money back. However, the distribution companies are not doing well. It is not only PHED. It is across the country, apart from Ikeja and Eko that are doing well. Most of them are struggling. Their argument in fairness to them is that they are not getting paid. People have to pay their bills and make sure that electricity facilities are not vandalised.
