FG Approves N211bn Power Projects

Abubakar Aliyu, minister of power, says the federal executive council (FEC) has approved 16 power projects.

The minister made the development known while speaking with newsmen at the end of the FEC meeting, presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the statehouse on Thursday.

Aliyu said the total cost of the projects is N211,203,901,210.

He blamed the poor power supply in Nigeria on the lack of attention paid to the development of the sector by the past administrations.

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According to him: “Today, I presented to the council 16 memos, which I seek for council’s approval and the council graciously approved all of them. At this point, let me say what these approvals will do to the nation’s electricity supply,”

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“As we’re all aware, the major problem we’re having in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) is to be able to evacuate sufficient electricity and distribute them. That is to say, we have a very weak transmission grid and distribution segment of the value chain.

“We may not be having much problem with generation. So, unless we’re able to strengthen the electricity grid, which is nationwide, and to expand, and to be able to evacuate, what the grid can take to consumers, we will have a lot of problems ahead of us.

“So, what we’re doing currently through various and several interventions is to be able to repair the grid by constructing new transmission lines, bringing in new equipments to replace the old ones at our substations.

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“So, the operational capacity, as you all know now is hovering around 5,000 megawatts and the transmission and distribution. So, these projects that we brought to council today and got approvals are all geared towards strengthening the willing capacity of the transmission and towards distribution.

“Even though as you all know, the distribution segment of the NESI is been privatised, but we cannot fold our arms and allow them to continue not to do much in order to evacuate what the transmission can bring. So, these memos, although 16 of them but they’re all geared towards achieving what I’ve just explained.”