Politically speaking, small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) that include barbing salons, fashion designers, hair dressing salons, welders, provision stores, laundry shops etc, contribute significantly to the Nigerian economy but sadly it is reported that present electricity outages in the country were costing the SMEs over US $686.4 million of annual sales. Whereas poor and inadequate power supply is forcing the big industrial players to relocate their businesses to neighboring countries like Ghana, Benin Republic etc, who have more stable power supply, the small and medium-scale businesses in Nigeria are either shrinking or dying out. 

It is a fact that in comparative terms, while a company operating in the United States of America (USA) may experience power outage once in ten years, a similar company in Nigeria would experience power interruptions for one hundred and sixty five days in a year.

The DISCOs are at the downstream sector of the power supply value chain and are responsible to meet the electricity demand of the small and medium-scale enterprises, which is currently unsatisfactory. The alternative sources of diesel and petrol powered machines are no longer attractive as their costs have reached prohibitive levels, for instance a liter of diesel now sells for about N800 from its previous affordable price of N300. Petrol, popularly referred to as PMS, is sold for N200 per liter in most locations and sells for higher price/liter in other locations and is scarce these days resulting into long queues and man-hour loss. The government is currently thinking of the complete removal of fuel subsidy, which will definitely lead to hike in price, even if in the interim. This policy will further affect the SMEs adversely and asphyxiate their operations.

This is therefore a clarion call to the distribution companies to invest more in their network in order to effectively meet the electricity demand of the small and medium-scale enterprises if Nigeria must experience social order and economic prosperity. In line with the above, we commend the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) that recently built three new feeders to complement and decongest the existing ones thus fulfilling its statutory obligation to provide retail electricity to its customers. This is the way to go and it is hoped that other DISCOs would emulate this worthy gesture.

On its part, the federal government as an interested party in these DISCOs, have to give them necessary support so that the cost of doing business in Nigeria will drop and more small and medium-scale entrepreneurs encouraged to maintain their existing businesses and start up new ones.