Grid Collapse: Atiku Set to Tackle Re-occurrence

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has said the recent total National Grid Collapse is too much for the Nigerians to bear.

Atiku, who emphasised that the grid Collapse on Wednesday was the sixth time it had occurred in 2022, advocated a cutting-edge finance approach for infrastructure that would create an atmosphere favourable for investors to enter and stabilise the power industry.

“Due to the priority that I place on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, I am proposing innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.

“I’ll promote the incentivisation, with tax breaks, a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to primarily mobilise domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy.

“The IDF will have an initial investment capacity of approximately US$20 billion,” Atiku promised.

In addition, the PDP presidential candidate promised to push for the establishment of an Infrastructure Development Credit Guarantee Agency to support IDF operations by de-risking infrastructure investments and fostering investor confidence in taking calculated risks and making financial investments.

Meanwhile, the major electricity distribution companies (DisCos) have, in a message to customers, said the national grid collapsed at 11:27 a.m. Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) alerted consumers yesterday, blaming the outage on the collapse.

The DisCo tweeted: “Dear customers, we regret to inform you of a system collapse on the national grid at precisely 11:27 a.m. today, July 20. We are in talks with the Transmission Company of Nigeria to ascertain the cause of the collapse and a possible restoration timeline. We will keep you updated on the situation.”

On June 13, the national grid suffered a system failure. The grid has been forcefully shut down over 140 times since the Federal Government privatised the power sector.