The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disbursed over N1.3 trillion to support the power supply to Nigerians in the last five years. Experts insisted that the sector would have collapsed without loans and interventions by the apex bank noted that it was high time for the sector to stand on its own.
CBN had launched the Power and Aviation Intervention Fund (PAIF), hovering at about N300 billion, Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility (NEMSF) at about N213 billion, N140 billion Solar Connection Intervention Facility, over N600 billion tariff shortfall intervention as well as a recent N120 billion intervention designed for mass metering among others.
The Federal Government had similarly released N600 billion for the power sector to bridge the shortfall in the payment of monthly invoices by key stakeholders in the sector with another N701 billion CBN facility deployed in March 2017 as a Power Assurance Guarantee.
Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor, while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the Bankers Committee in Abuja said: “So, what we are trying to say here is that the CBN has always been there to support the power sector. Like you all know, we have disbursed over N1.3 trillion in the last five years to support through the Generators or Discos or to acquire equipment or buy meters or to improve what is being paid to electricity generating companies; so that they can continue to pay for their gas and then the system can continue to operate.’’