The recent announcement of plan to give Nigerians two months of free electricity as part of palliatives for COVID -19 is nothing more than propaganda that cannot work , the Transmission Company of Nigeria has said.
The TCN faulted the announcement by power distribution companies that the Federal Government and the National Assembly would pay for the proposed two- month free electricity for customers .
Discos made the announcement through their umbrella body , the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors.
Reacting to the development in Abuja on Thursday, the Managing Director of the TCN , Usman Mohammed , said , “There is this information that went round that power is going to be free .
“ I don ’ t know where that information came from .
“ But I can tell you that there is nothing like power is going to be free because the Federal Government cannot make power free . The Federal Government does not own the power. ”
Mohammed explained that the Federal Government only owns the TCN while the generation and distribution companies were largely owned by private investors .
He said , “In the electricity industry , apart from transmission , which is just the transporter, all the other chains do not belong to the Federal Government . So I cannot understand how somebody will concoct that information . ”
Mohammed argued that those peddling the information were merely sharing propaganda that would not work.
He said , “But these are some of the people involved in propaganda who brand information that is very unnecessary , to be honest .
“ I think at this stage what we need to do is to sustainably supply electricity and that is what we are doing . ”
The TCN boss further stated that in the last two weeks that most parts of Nigeria had been on lockdown, operators in the power sector had worked and performed well .
However , the House of Representatives and electricity distribution companies raised a joint committee on the proposed two-month free power supply on Thursday.
Speaker of the House , Femi Gbajabiamila , who presided over a meeting in Abuja with the companies and other officials , said the joint panel would work out modalities for the proposed two-month bill waiver for the most vulnerable people in the country.
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