World Bank spends $400m on Nigerian power projects
Stories by Sola Fadare, Lagos
Oby Ezekwesili, Vice President
for Africa, World Bank AS a way of revving the crippling power sector in the country, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ABRD) also known as World Bank has spent $400 million (N47.2bn) on power projects, the Manager PHCN World Bank Project Monitoring Unit, (PMU), Mr. Bayo Adeniyi has said.
Adeniyi, who made this known in Abuja stressed that the World’s apex bank embarked on the projects as a way of exposing the country into best practices, adding that the bank would have achieved huge success at the completion of power projects in Karu and Kubwa located in the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He said “The World Bank’s decision to embark on the power projects is to teach the country the best practices in the world.
If it can work in other countries, it will work in Nigeria if the government and the people are willing to adopt it.” Speaking on the level of work done so far in Karu and Kubwa, Adeniyi observed that “The power supply in these areas will definitely improve with a remarkable difference. Earlier we started by replacing the bigger transformers wit the smaller ones. We have dane much work on this are to improve supply in Karu and its environs. To stem energy loss and improve revenue collection, we will install pre-paid meters in each household.”
He also added that there was need to build a power sub-station in Karu to increase the bulk of energy supply to the area and curb the problem associated with load shedding.”
The apex bank chief noted that the projects would be completed in 14 months and “the world bank would have succeeded in establishing that best practices could be entrenched in the country. Then it will be the duty of the government and the private sector to replicate the practices in all parts of the country.”
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