The World Bank has injected about $200 million into Nigeria’s power sector.
Speaking yesterday at the ongoing National Council on Power (NACOP) in Abuja, the Resident Country Representative of the United Nation’s Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Mr. Patrick Kormawa, said the core interest area of his organisation is sustainable power sector in Nigeria as typified by the on-going sector reform.
He praised the government for approving the forum as it has brought all stakeholders. He insisted that development of partnerships is in consonance with UNIDO’s interest in the devolvement of sustainable power sector in the country.
He said it is a very important variable in the overall efforts at economic prosperity and job creation efforts of the government.
Kormawa said the conference could not have come at a better time than now as it will provide the platform that helps in strengthening partnership among all the key stakeholders on the important subject matter – Power, as the federal, state and local governments come on the same page.
He said the platform would also help to bring development partners on a round table with other stakeholders. This he hopes, will galvanise activities in such a manner that investors would have more confidence in the sector.
He said: “Private sector is investing huge sums of money in power to resuscitate a once dormant sector of the economy; it would require the collaboration of all to ensure success of the whole exercise.
“When you have partnership built around a strong support base of stakeholders it will facilitate power access.”
The UNIDO chief noted that with the nation’s abundant resources both in renewable and other energy sources could easily be developed for generation of power.
UNIDO he said is interested in the sector because without power, industrialisation is a mirage.
Also speaking on the sideline of the event, Chairperson, Emergency Committee on the Northeast, Professor Soji Adelaja, said there is need to ensure that the root causes of non-access to power by the large number of people in the region is partly responsible for the insurgency and insecurity prevalent in the area.
He said the task of his body is to galvanise economic recovery using energy availability to drive employment creation and economic prosperity, as fundamental deliberative to calm nerves down and reduce unrest.
He said: “In the age and time of new knowledge economy, we cannot afford 50 per cent of the people and their land mass to live their lives without access to energy.”
As a visionary leader, Mr. President is poise to radically address access to power through the Roadmap, privatization, just as he observed that a solid foundation has been laid to ensure Government plays less role in the sector.
