Geometric Power, Nigeria’s foremost integrated power organization, has lauded the Abia State government for promoting private-public partnership as part of the strategy to accelerate the state’s rapid development.

The commendation is contained in a letter by the company’s leadership to Governor Alex Otti, Power and Utilities Commissioner Ikechukwu Monday, and Power and Utilities Special Adviser Katchi Etolue, according to a statement today by Edise Ekong, Brand and Communications Manager at Aba Power, a member of the Geometric Power group.

Edise says “the latest example of the state government’s promotion of collaboration with the private sector is its intervention in recent different negotiations” between Geometric Power and some other firms in the energy industry for uninterrupted power supply in the Aba Ring-fenced Area following gas supply outages that resulted in blackouts in the area.

Aba Ring-fenced Area comprises nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State.

“The governor”, declared Ekong, “intervened directly and many times in our negotiations with gas producers and suppliers to ensure constant supply, so that industries, social organizations like hospitals, laboratories and educational institutions, as well as households, markets and small and medium enterprises remain competitive for the benefit of all in Abia and beyond”.

Though Geometric Power signed a gas supply contract almost two decades ago with The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SDPC) which used to operate Oil Mining Licence (OML) 17 in Owaza in Ukwa West LGA of Abia State, it receives gas from Heirs Energies, a fast-growing indigenous oil and gas company that now operates the oil licence following the President Muhammadu Buhari’s decline to renew the Shell licence.

Given the ageing gas infrastructure which was built over half a century ago that has now created serious operational challenges, noted Ekong, Governor Otti has been encouraging Geometric Power to explore alternative sources of gas supply to its 188-megawatt plant in the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba.

“Progress is being on this issue”, he said, but provided no details.

Continued the Aba Power manager: “As he was intervening in negotiations with gas suppliers, the governor was also getting constant briefings from his Commissioner for Power and public Utilities, Engineer Monday, and his Special Adviser on Power and Public Utilities, Engr Etolue, both sound professionals and dedicated public servants”.

Ekong, also an engineer, stated that Governor Otti demonstrated the same passion in Geometric Power’s discussions with the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) and the Independent System Operator (ISO) in Abuja for his firm’s temporary use of power from the national grid during emergencies.

He revealed that Geometric Power has already paid in advance an undisclosed amount which he described as significant for supplies from the national grid “when there is a compelling need to draw electricity from this source”.

Commending the state administration for “practising public-private partnership in truth and spirit”, he commended “religious bodies, civil society organizations, industrialists, landlords, professionals, traders, communities, and other stakeholders in Aba and the environs for their understanding during the blackouts arising from a total lack of gas while the repair and rehabilitation of the antiquated gas infrastructure were on.

“Things are much better now, and we hope they will continue to get better”.

Geometric Power’s achievement of providing reliable power in the Aba Ring-fenced Area consisting of 9 of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State is significant, according to the British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Jonny Baxter.

The deputy High Commissioner made the declaration today during a visit to the Geometric Power group, Nigeria’s only integrated power company that operates the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant in the Osisioma Industrial Layout of Aba and Aba Power, the country’s 12th distribution company (DisCo).

Mr. Baxter also praised the huge investment in the Aba Ring-fenced Area amounting to over $800m.

Accompanied by the Special Adviser to Governor Alex Otti on Power and Public Utilities, Engr Kachi Etoluo, the diplomat declared: “What you have achieved here is impressive. It is an innovative approach, and it is clear that significant work, investment and commitment have gone building this project”.

The Aba Ring-fence is the only part of Nigeria not dependent on the national grid for electricity as it generates its own electricity from its own gas-fired turbines manufactured by General Electric (GE) of the United States, the world’s oldest and biggest electricity equipment producing firm, and distributes it within the territory.

Though all the electricity generated is currently consumed within the area, according to Cliff Eneh, a former senior engineer with the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in Lagos who is now an energy consultant in Lagos, there are plans to export excess power to the national grid when a new turbine belonging to Geometric Power arrives from Houston, Texas, in the United States.

During the visit, the Geometric Power Group Managing Director, Mrs Agatha Nnaji, apprised Baxter of immense support and cooperation “that we have been receiving from the Abia State government in the finest spirit of public-private partnership”, asking other state governments to learn from it to enhance national development.

She, however, pointed some challenges facing Geometric Power, especially a lingering supply chain crisis.

Mrs Nnaji explained to the British diplomat that gas supply to the plant has not been as regular as it should be, ascribing interruptions to “the old age of the gas infrastructure built over 50 years ago”.

Engr Etolue, who led the Abia State’s team to the visit, assured the Geometric Power management of the governmentment’s “unrelenting support to you and other investors because partnerships are dear to Governor Otti and other people in the administration who are desirous of leapfrogging the state’s development”.

Baxter later toured the Geometric Plant and other facilities in the premises like the steel tubular poles, buried 10 metres in the ground and with 10 metres standing above the ground, to withstand natural disasters like like earthquakes.

“This is the only place you find this facility in West Africa, if not Africa”, Engr Livinus Nmaram, the learning and development director at Geometric Power, told Baxter.

“You can see them in world cities like San Francisco and Tokyo that are earthquake prone”.

Nigerian businesses have been urged to embrace transparency, trust and accountability in their operations because it is in their own trust to do so, according to a nongovernment organization (NGO).

The Southeast branch of the Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria (ECAN) made the appeal today in a statement after its third quarterly meeting at Owerri, Imo State capital, where it reviewed the recent power outages in the Aba Ring-fenced Area occasioned by natural gas supply disruptions to the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant that provides electricity to Aba Power which, in turn, supplies power to nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State that make up the Aba Ring-fence.

“From our study of the gas supply crisis”, stated ECAN in a statement, “neither the Abia State government nor the businesses and people of Aba would have treated the development with so much understanding and sympathy if not for the record of transparency, accountability, probity, and trust that Aba Power, Nigeria’s 12th and newest electricity distribution (DIsCo), has long established”.

The statement signed by the ECAN chairman in the Southeast, Engr Joseph Ubani, and the secretary, Comrade Chris Okpara, listed the actions by the DisCo that made consumers trust it even when there have been disruptions in power supply.

The first of such things, said ECAN, “is the provision of smart meters to over 95% of consumers, even though it is only three years in operation.

“This means that not even one person was billed for the days there was no light, a remarkable departure from the practice where some DisCos that started operations since 2013 hoard prepaid meters, and so rely on estimated billings to exploit customers”.

The NGO praised Aba Power for providing the smart free of charge, even though it cost some N43bn to procure and install them through vendor financing.

The electricity consumers’ body also lauded Aba Power for taking prompt disciplinary measures against both its staff members and agents of its business partners who tried to compromise the system by asking consumers for payment before the installation of the smart meters.

Another reason for the public confidence in Aba Power, continued ECAN, is its swift measures against partners despite longstanding relationships, citing its disengagement of a wire and cable supplier during the Easter holidays last April for not making an alternative arrangement for the supply of materials from its stores for the Umuomainta community in Ngwa North LGA whose six poles were felled by storm and trucks.

“The disengagement”, noted the association, “signaled to all and sundry that Aba Power would not brook excuses for non-performance in emergencies even in rural communities.

“It’s critical to cultivate and maintain the reputation of promise keepers”.

The NGO, in addition, commended the DisCo for always responding promptly to communities, businesses and individuals with challenges regardless of their status, “and it does so with courtesy, unlike in the past when there was a different service provider”.

It stated that “all these factors that made the people in the Aba Ring-fenced Area sympathetic to Aba Power when they could not get electricity supplies due to severe gas shortages that lasted for days.

“It is delightful that the worst appears to be over as Heirs Energies, the gas supplier, is battling admirably for the rehabilitation and modernization of the aging Eastern Nigerian gas pipelines that were installed 50-60 years ago, worsened by the lingering legal dispute between the Nigerian government during the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) that operated Oil Mining Licence (OML) 17 at Owaza in Ukwa West Local Government Area in Abia State which made the petroleum giant unable to invest in the infrastructure for the years the law suit lasted.

“We, therefore, recommend to Nigerian businesses to embrace transparency, probity, and accountability because these virtues give rise to trust.

“Trust, as studies have shown over the decades, is not just a personal virtue but an organizational, economic and development imperative.

“It drives rapid growth and national development more than most people seem to realize”.