Nigeria may soon be in total darkness because of various challenges in the Power Sector, according to The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Dallas Peavey, Jr.
He said this in a recent interview with The PUNCH.
Peavey lamented that Fuel supply and Transmission posed serious problems to Nigeria’s electricity.
Speaking about the exchange rate, he said: “When we bought the plant three years ago, the exchange rate was N156 to the dollar. Today, the bank rate is N310 to the dollar, double of what it was then.
“This plant was built 37 years ago by the Japanese. And to do replacement and repairs, the foreign exchange rate is double. So, where are you going to find that? We are being paid in naira, but almost everything that we pay for is in dollars. So, the exchange rate is significantly impacting our ability to continue to operate as well and we are looking to the government to assist us on that, to come up with the solution for us to do that. Also, the scarcity of the dollar to be able to buy these spare parts and continue to do maintenance is impacting us tremendously.
“But we, as a private company, have continued to dig deep into our pocket, go to our sister and parent companies to borrow money that the banks can’t loan us to continue to operate. But even so, if we don’t get paid and if we don’t get gas, we can’t continue to generate.”