THE Federal Government on Wednesday said the recent power outages experienced nationwide were as a result of a gas shortage, vandalism, and other factors which were being currently addressed.

It also said the collapsed power grid was back in shape and efforts were underway to restore power on the grid.

The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, disclosed this while fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council Meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Aliyu said, “The more reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go for maintenance. It is scheduled maintenance and it is supposed to be a scheduled outage but we had not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalism of pipelines which the NNPC has addressed.

“It is a combination of many factors. That compounded the problem we are having on the grid. We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid.

“We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid. Basically, the problem around gas. You need to have a gas contract between generating companies and gas suppliers; some are in form of contracts, some are not. We are looking into this and have proffered some solution.”

He also disclosed that FEC had approved N5bn for payment for the right-of-way to expand transmission in Lagos and Ogun states.

THE Federal Government on Wednesday said the recent power outages experienced nationwide were as a result of a gas shortage, vandalism, and other factors which were being currently addressed.

It also said the collapsed power grid was back in shape and efforts were underway to restore power on the grid.

The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, disclosed this while fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council Meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Aliyu said, “The more reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go for maintenance. It is scheduled maintenance and it is supposed to be a scheduled outage but we had not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalism of pipelines which the NNPC has addressed.

“It is a combination of many factors. That compounded the problem we are having on the grid. We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid.

“We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid. Basically, the problem around gas. You need to have a gas contract between generating companies and gas suppliers; some are in form of contracts, some are not. We are looking into this and have proffered some solution.”

He also disclosed that FEC had approved N5bn for payment for the right-of-way to expand transmission in Lagos and Ogun states.