Echefu, TStv Boss Decries Power Outage, Fuel Scarcity

Bright Echefu, managing director, TStv Africa PayTV, has called on the Federal Government and power sector to improve on the electricity supply to safeguard businesses in the country.

Echefu made the appeal on his social media handle on Thursday saying that its operations were being hampered by unavailability of power and high cost of running on generators to serve its customers.

He said that the company spent N232 million on diesel in 2021 for operations in its headquarters and affiliate offices across the country.

“This March, I am so pained that diesel for TStv headquarters operation alone has climbed to N36 million for the same 45,000 litres that we bought at N14 million in October 2021.

According to Echefu, as a company, it is inconvenient for the organisation to keep spending oustrageous sums monthly on power in Abuja office alone.

“From our finance records, TStv bought 769,300 litres of diesel and spent a total of N232 million from January 2021 to December 2021 for TStv headquarters and its affiliate offices.’’

Echefu said there were months that the organisation relied solely on generators to run its operations.

He further placed the actual need of TSTV monthly at 68,000 litres which he said covered other offices and affiliated businesses across the country.

“If this issue is not resolved by the government, it means TStv should be prepared to look for N489 million to power its generators for the next nine months.

“The company will continue to serve Nigerians with uninterrupted pay TV service, even though this is coming with extreme pain and discomfort.

“I know a lot of SMEs are going through this crisis too.

“The facility seats on 1.6 hectares of land. We have over 200 ACs to power, we have transmission equipment, and we have 150-Channel Network Operations Centres.

“We have TStv studios, Satellite teleport, Tier III data centre facility and many infrastructures all in Idu headquarters that must never go off for one second,’’ he added.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the organisation since it began operations has offered viewers the pay-as-you-watch option for subscription.