The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, has urged the Genesis Electricity Company to improve its generating capacity to meet the power needs of the people of the South-East and South-South regions of the country.
Nebo made the call in Abuja Friday when the company paid him a visit in his office to showcase an award of the Africa Utility Performance for 2013/2014 it won recently.
However, the Minister seized the opportunity to urge the company, which is among the Generating Companies that won a bid to provide power to the South-East and South-South areas of the country during privatisation exercise carried out by the Federal Government, to improve on electricity generation in the regions.
He told the company that Nnewi, the hub of industrialisation in the South-East region, had in recent times had 40 of the 46 industries closed down due to huge cost of operation due to poor power supply.
He, therefore, charged the company to rise up to the task by generating sufficient power to mitigate the problem.
A statement signed by his Deputy-Director (Press), Timothy Oyedeji, said the Minister noted that “the stage was set for Genesis Electricity to carry out a survey of industrial clusters in the South-East and South-South regions and assess their power need, as such efforts will assist the company in finding solutions to their energy requirements.”
The Minister assured the company of government’s readiness to partner with them, describing Genesis Electricity as a specialist in Embedded Power.
He added that because of the inability of the country to generate enough energy, the company was critical to the sector in filling the existing gaps.
