The federal government has assured the funding partners of the North Core/Dorsale Nord Regional Interconnector Project consisting of Nigeria-Niger-Benin-Togo-Burkina Faso of Nigeria’s commitment to the actualisation of the project.
Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, made gave the assurance in his office, during a courtesy call by the country director, Nigeria Western and Central Africa Region, Shubham Chaudhuri and his team who came for a joint midterm review mission of the project.
This is as the minister also affirmed the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari to ensuring that a solid foundation for energy infrastructure is laid to upscale the energy provision and attract more investors to Nigeria.
Responding to the issues of Social Safeguard payments (compensation of communities who the North Core project will affect), the minister, in a statement signed by the ministry’s assistant director, Information, Odutayo Oluseyi, said there is adequate budgetary provision to cater for them particularly in the 2022 budget assuring them that as soon as all required processes are put in place the compensation would commence.
He said contractors can move to site where there are no encumbrances and stated the need for all funding partners to be aligned to avoid delay in the execution of the project.
He assured them that adequate security measures are being put in place by all West Africa Power Pool Countries (WAPP) reminiscence that the Minister of Defence, Nigeria and all other defence ministers were present at the February, 2022 ground-breaking ceremony at Niamey, Niger to put in place measures as regards to security.
Speaking earlier, the country director, Nigeria Western and Central Africa Region, Shubham Chaudhuri said as part of the objective of the joint mid-term review mission on the North Core Regional Interconnection Project by the World Bank, Africa Development Bank (AFDB) and the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) is to discuss the results achieved and constraint to the implementation of the remaining project activities and the Northern Corridor project.
This, according to him, includes Social Safeguard payments steps in terms of resettlement action plan (RAP) implementation in Nigeria; Actions and implementation plan in order to ensure Nigeria’s electricity is expected by November, 2024.
Meanwhile, the minister, who received the coordinator of the US Government’s Power Africa Programme, Mr. Mark Carrato and his team in his office on a courtesy visit yesterday, said the energy transition programme of the federal government is to increase the operational capacity through the vision 30-30-30 in which 30 per cent of Nigeria energy would be renewable.
He thanked the delegation for their willing to align with the Nigeria Energy Transition Programme stating that Nigeria’s hope at attaining zero per cent fossil energy by 2060 is on course. He stated that the federal government will continue to work frantically to abate the security challenge which is yielding results so as to attract more investors.
While thanking USAID for their continuous technical support, Abubakar said various areas of interventions in the power sector are opened for investors and would be spelt out in the course of further discussions.
Speaking earlier, the coordinator of the US Government’s Power Africa Programme, Mark Carrato said USAID Power Africa Nigeria Sector Program (PA-NPSP) has worked closely with Nigeria over the years. He said the five-year USAID Power Africa Nigeria Sector Program (PA-NPSP) is a pointer to their commitment to increase electricity availability, access and reliability. He assured of continuous engagements to actualize the goal of Power Africa.
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