The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, said the Federal Government plans to impose electricity tariffs on the use of its completed renewable energy assets by 25 tertiary institutions and teaching hospitals in Nigeria.
Tegbe disclosed this on Wednesday at the unveiling of the state-owned Renewable Asset Management Company, RAMCO, in Abuja.
According to him, the tariffs would help maintain the Federal Government’s renewable energy assets across the country.
“It is a new dawn. We are very good at building public assets but poor at sustaining them. RAMCO offers a different model to renewable energy. Nigeria has lived too long with embarrassing electricity.
“Some universities came to me on a courtesy visit to thank me after using free light for two years. I told them, thank you; the pro bono is over. We are coming to commission, and you will pay tariff. The same thing with teaching hospitals,” he said.
Earlier, the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, REA, Abba Aliyu, re-echoed the minister’s stance on the introduction of tariffs for the Federal Government’s renewable energy assets in public institutions.
He noted that, since 2017, the Federal Government, through REA, had deployed 82 megawatts, MW of solar hybrid generation across 22 federal universities and three teaching hospitals under its Energising Education Programme.
Aliyu, however, noted that the Federal Government needs to recoup the value of its renewable energy deployment through electricity tariffs to sustain the assets.
“Government has funded this asset. REA has built them. Beneficiary institutions must contribute to sustaining them by paying for the electricity they consume,” he said.
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa; the Minister of State for Health, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako; and others were present at the event.
We reported that public institutions benefiting from the Federal Government’s renewable energy deployment include Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; and the Federal University, Wukari, Taraba State, as well as three teaching hospitals.