Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has urged the Federal Government to stop the payment of electricity subsidy, saying it is “ineffective”.

However, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, declared that liquidity is the major solution required by the troubled power sector.

This was as the Managing Director of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), MrChieduUgbo, informed the Senate Committee on Power that the Calabar Power Generation Company is the most functional power plant in the country.

The 36 governors made the call, yesterday, in a document entitled ‘Development of the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan: Policy Recommendations by State Governments to the Federal Ministry of Power’.

NGF said in the document that the state governments recommended a series of policies to tackle the challenges within the power sector.

They added  that the state governments recommended a series of policies to tackle the challenges within the power sector.

The recommendation comes when regulatory authority is being transferred to states.

Last month, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) transferred oversight of the electricity market in Ondo, Ekiti and Enugu to each state’s electricity regulatory bureau.

According to the document, the states recommended that wholesale and retail electricity subsidies to customers and across the NESI value chain be reduced and eventually eliminated over time.

The need for liquidity in the power sector was canvassed by the minister in his submission to the committee investigating the controversial Make Up Gas (MUG) Reprocessing Deal Involving the Ministry of Finance, NDPHC, Calabar Generation Company Limited and ACUGAS Limited.

The minister, through his Special Assistant, DahiruMoyi, said the agreement on gas supply between NPDHC and ACUGAS was inherited by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 since it was signed in 2011 during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
He said, “Just as the Ministry of Justice was unaware of the contract agreement, the Ministry of Finance was also not part of it from the beginning. However, since the government is a continuum, the finance ministry later came to facilitate the required liquidity.