Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN recently spoke to CNBC Africa on the achievements and challenges in the three important sectors he supervises.
Fashola maintained that contrary to popular claims that the administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari has been doing nothing, work is indeed ongoing across the country. Here are 10 major takeaways from his interview:
On Uncompleted Power Projects
The present government met a number of uncompleted power projects, some of which were held down by court disputes such as projects in Aba, Zungeru and in Azura. President Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo have however provided the needed leadership to settle the disputes outside the court system and work has resumed at all sites.
On Achieving Incremental Power
The Power, Works and Housing minister admitted that Nigeria does not have enough power. “Our peak power generation in all of our history as a nation was 5,074 megawatts achieved on the 2nd of February this year,” he said. He, however, said the first step in addressing the problem is through what he identified as incremental power from the numerous power generation projects. “Every time we add 1kw, 1mw or 3mw, we are getting incremental power,” Fashola said.
Nigeria has Over 40 Small Hydro Power Plants
Aside the big hydro power plants in Kainji and Challawa, Nigeria has over forty small hydro power plants which are now being revived. The government has concluded the business plan on 8 of them and when completed, they will boost rural electrification project because the dams are in rural areas.
On Renewable Energy
The government is exploring all possible sources of power generation including wind and solar power. It hopes to increase the almost 0% renewable energy as of today to about 30% in the energy mix by 2030. A 10mw wind power project is underway in Kaduna state while solar power agreements to do 1.2 gigawatts have been signed.
On the Famous Mambilla Power Project:
According to the power, works and housing minister, the Mambilla plant was conceived in 1982 to be the largest single hydro and thermal power plant in size with over 3000mw. However, beyond initial assessment and resettlement plans, nothing had been done even though previous administrations had awarded contracts, even without land acquisition.
On Vandalism and Sabotage
Government is exploring dialogue and law enforcement. “My power plan is not too different from that of a generator owner, it is only bigger. If I cannot get gas because of a security problem, it becomes the responsibility of the security agencies,” Fashola said.
On Transmission and Popular Complaints
In response to comments describing transmission as the weakest link in Nigeria’s power sector, Fashola said the transmission capacity is well over 5000 and sightly above current power generation capacity. He added that expansion work was ongoing across the country to increase the transmission capacity to 20,000mw capacity over a time frame.
On Tariffs
Fashola said people need to understand that the more reliable power gets and they pay, the cheaper it will become. “It is not true there is a 45% increase in tariffs across the country, there are differences across the DISCOs,” he added.
On Housing
According to the minister, there is no new Housing policy. The present policy from 2012 seeks to achieve affordable housing but has a defective programme targeted to deliver 21,000 houses through Public-Private Partnerships but has delivered only 2,000 houses. Efforts have been made to identify and correct the challenges including the standardisation of housing designs.
On Road Projects
Fashola said the previous government had awarded 206 road projects at a total contract price of about N2.2tr but had paid only N700bn. The federal government was also owing the various contractors for 3 years on the average. The minister stressed that the seeds of the recession the Nigerian economy presently faces were sown over those 3 years and that by paying contractors to return to site and putting money in the system, government is paving the way to recovery from recession.
0 comments:
Post a Comment