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Fri, Mar

Power Sector: FG Set To Spend Another N915 Billion In Year 2020

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The power sector in Nigeria has remained a mystery that has continued to gulp trillions of Naira yet with less impact on the actual power, so far the federal government claimed it has already spent N1.5 trillion for the power sector in the last two years and is planning to spend another N915 billion next year.

Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, disclosed this while interacting with journalists at a sideline during the ongoing World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings holding in Washington DC, United States.

 

Accordingly, last month September 2019 Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had claimed that the federal government had invested about N1.5 trillion in intervention funds in the Nigeria’s power sector during the last two years.

 

Osinbajo made this claim during a power sector roundtable hosted by Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited (MESL) at its Kainji Hydropower Plant in Niger State last month.

 

The Vice President was represented by the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman during the meeting. The Minister said “the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the third round of intervention funding for the sector, with a total of about N1.5 trillion in the last two years.

 

However, yesterday in Washington DC, the Finance Minister said she was about holding further discussions with the management of the World Bank to finalise how the fresh loan of $3.5bn (N915bn) the country is currently seeking would be disbursed for its power project.

 

According to the Minister the plan of the Federal Government for the power sector, the loan would be spent for the development of transmission and distribution networks to improve the delivery of electricity.

 

She added, the loan would also be used in fixing some of the challenges that the country is currently facing in the power sector.

 

She further explained, “There is a proposed $2.5bn to $3bn facility for the power sector development programme and will include development of the transmission and distribution networks as well as removing the challenges that we currently have now in the electricity sector.

 

Ahmed claimed that why the government needed to do is to improve its revenue-generating capacity in order to boost the revenue to about 50 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

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