Few days to the Christmas, Nigerians are contending with issues around electricity supply and naira scarcity.
On Monday, it emerged that the country will face increased electricity outages as Egbin power station shut down for maintenance.
Egbin Power is the largest power generating station in Nigeria with an installed capacity of 1,320 MW consisting of 6 Units of 220MW each, contributing over 16 percent of the total electricity generated to the Nigerian National Grid.
The management of the Transmission Company of Nigeria said that Egbin Power Station will be shut down for three days starting Monday on the back of gas pipeline maintenance.
According to this report, the station was shut down at 11:13 hours on December 18, 2023, to allow the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) to maintain a linking gas pipeline supplying gas to Egbin Power Station.
“This means a reduction of 676 megawatts of bulk power generated into the nation’s grid for 3 days and consequently the quantum of bulk power available to be delivered to distribution companies load centres nationwide for the period,” the company said.
This means that there will be a shortage of electricity generation and supply and blackouts in some areas of the country.
Also, a combination of insider abuse in banks and hoarding by customers has been identified as the cause of the scarcity of cash in the country ahead of the festive season.
Naira scarcity has persisted despite the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had assured the public of sufficient stock of currency notes in the country.
Many Nigerians are still struggling to have access to enough cash from banks.
Point of Sale (PoS) operators have resorted to buying cash from traders and petrol station attendants to augment what they are able to withdraw from banks.
A banking source said racketeering in banks is also responsible for the naira scarcity.
He said Nigerians pay N36,000 for freshly minted notes worth N20,000, and N63,000 for N50,000. “These guys do this business openly with their PoS machines if you can’t transfer easily to their accounts.”
“CBN staff and security agencies are in this together,” another source who works with a tier-2 bank said.
The central bank said last week that Nigerians were hoarding cash in anticipation that the government might act on the naira redesign programme, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling and the CBN’s statement that the old and the redesigned naira banknotes remain legal tender.
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