The Minister of State for Power, Mustapha Shauri on Thursday last week directed the Nigeria Electricity Management Service Agency (NEMSA) to establish offices at the nation’s airports and seaports for certification of electrical equipment being imported into the country.
Shauri who spoke in Abuja during the official presentation of agency’s condition of service and commissioning of surveillance equipment, said the directive was to cur the influx of sub-standard electrical equipment into the country.
According to him, electrical equipment such as meters and transformers that the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) deployed to homes and offices are of sub-standard qualities.
He said, “Today if you see the quality of the products we use either as electrical appliance in your home they are of very low standard. We are not only talking of meters, we are talking of transformers that are used by DisCos, transformers used by TCN. I see a future where NEMSA should have an office at the ports.”
Meanwhile, the NEMSA Managing Director, Engr. Peter Ewesor, who delivered a scorecard of the agency’s performance in 2018 to reporters, disclosed most of the DisCos are of the habit of putting customers on primary feeders.
The Chief Electrical Inspector of the Federation banned the DisCos from connecting premium customers to the 33kv line to stop poor quality network.
He said, “We have discovered that people now use primary feeder lines as point load. Because many people tell affluent customers that there is more power on 33Kv, they request the supply from the DisCos.
“By the time there are several point loads on this line, you no longer get sufficient power to the injection substations where the larger society is being supplied. You now hear of load shedding in the area.”
