The Federal Government, on Wednesday, declared that it was now “very difficult to sustain subsidy on electricity” as it revealed that the country’s power debt had continued to balloon.

Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said Nigeria must begin to move towards a cost-effective tariff model, as he revealed that the country was currently indebted to the tune of N1.3tn to electricity generating companies, while the debt to gas companies was $1.3bn.

The minister spoke at a press conference in Abuja, which also had the heads of all the agencies under the Federal Ministry of Power in attendance.

Adelabu stated that only N450bn was budgeted for electricity subsidy in the 2024 budget but stressed that findings by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission showed that subsidy would gulp about N2.9tn this year.

He noted that the crisis in the power sector had been so complex, stressing that the national grid had collapsed for about six times between December 2023 and now.

According to him, this was caused by shortage of gas, ageing machines in the grid value chain, low capacity to evacuate generated power, and destruction of power stations in some parts of the North-East geopolitical zone of the country.