21 June 2008
Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara StateToday's (Thursday's) National Economic Council deliberated on several issues including power, excess crude, agriculture and also the financial and stock markets.
The meeting started with the President who is not a member of NEC coming to brief us on power. Highlights of his briefing are:
That the power situation requires a national effort, not only by the Federal Government, but also from the states and local governments and his intention is to declare an emergency in the power sector in July and take the sector as a priority.
Leading to that was a presentation on what the key issues are that will ensure we address this problem. The Minister of State for Power made a presentation on what is required for the rehabilitation of the existing power plants, rehabilitation of the transmission and the rehabilitation of distribution and the completion of the NIPP.
It is the view of the ministry that with this move, it is possible to get to 6,000 megawatts by the end of 2009 and by 2011, with the expansion of the grid and Mambila and Zungeru as well, we should be able to get to 10,000 MW.
The question then was the amount of money required and we were told for the short term, it will require about $5.3 billion and a presentation was made that that should be shared between the federal, states and local governments.
The implementation committee is headed by the vice president. There are six governors, one coming from each of the six geo political zones and the three governors who were former ministers of power, then the current ministers of gas, minister of finance, minister of state for power, Attorney general of the Federation and the Minister of National Planning. Two representatives from banks, one from the labour, one from the media, one from the OPTS (oil operators).
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