Privatisation: Power sector will surpass telecom sector in efficiency soon – Nebo

Prof. Chinedu Nebo

The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, on Monday said the power sector will soon overtake the telecommunication sector in terms of efficiency and service delivery to Nigerians.

The minister said this when he received the Managing Director of Azura Power Holdings Ltd., Dr David Ladipo, who paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

Nebo said that the Federal Government had created the enabling environment for investors to invest in the power sector.

“I want to tell you that just like the telecoms sector was privatised in 1999 and became very efficient, the power sector is set to even record bigger success than the telecoms sector because of the necessity of power to all Nigerians,’’ he said.

The minister said there was the need for investors to invest in the power sector.
He said that the West African sub-region, through the West African Power Pool, was already looking forward to Nigeria to take the lead in generating power for the region.

The minister said that whatever power that was generated from the IPP would surely be bought by government through the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company.
According to him, the issue of loss will not arise.

He said the Federal Government would continue to work with relevant stakeholders to fast track the construction of IPPs and deal with the gas challenge to the plants.

Earlier, Ladipo said his company had concluded plans to invest one billion dollars to construct a 450megawatts green-field independent power plant (IPP) in Nigeria.

Ladipo said that work on the proposed site for the plant in Edo would start in May and would be completed in 30 months (ending of 2016).

“It’s a 450mw Independent Power Project in Edo state, we have not started constructing yet, but we are still at the stage of closing the financing. We have a few more months till May to go.

“The project is expected to take off in May and be completed in 30 months time from that period, that is by 2016 ending or early 2017,’’ he said.

Ladipo said the project, would be in two phases and would involve the construction of the IPP.
He said this would gulp about 700 million dollars and another 300 million dollars for the attendant gas facilities to the plant.

Ladipo said a consortium of banks and financial institutions consisting of 14 lending institutions, nine syndicate banks from across the world had been put together for the project.

The banks include Standard Chartered bank, Rand Merchant bank, World Bank group, Stanbic IBTC, German Investment Corporation, FCMB, among others.

The Azura-Edo power project is a 450mw open cycle gas turbine power station to be developed near Benin City in Edo as part of plans to boost power generation in the country. (NAN)

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