The Federal Government today called on its Polish counterpart to bring in her wealth of technological expertise into the power sector by the setting up of power plants that can deliver smaller megawatts of electricity in the country with a view to making same the available for supply to the people within the shortest possible time. Permanent Secretary, Power, Amb. Godknows Igali who spoke today at a meeting with a Polish delegation, led by its Minister of Economy, Andrzej Dycha, stated that such an investment will provide a win-win situation for both parties, as the investors will get their turnover quicker, with Nigeria in turn enjoying the increase in power output instantly.
According to Igali, the entire gamut of the electricity value chain was suffering from long years of neglect and under-funding which informed the determination of this Administration to pursue privatization with vigour, adding that having seen the transformation in the Banking and Telecoms industries as a result of privatization, it saw the need to inject private sector dynamism into the system.
He noted that since the exercise which took place about twenty months ago, there has been a tremendous increase in the nation’s power sector output which would have been noticed unquestionably, but for the incessant vandalism of gas pipelines, adding that the Ughelli Power Station for example, has since then increased its generation capacity from a paltry 115MW to 650MW and another target of 850MW in some months ahead.
Amb. Igali assured the Polish delegation that the country has enough coal deposits to provide 5,000MW of power from coal, just as he told the Polish delegation that the government will provide all the necessary backing for the take-off of the deal, stressing that all permits and licences would be fast-tracked in order to ensure seamless realization of projects. Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Andrzej Dycha stated that Poland is the fastest developing economy in Europe now and has developed superior technology for coal and renewable energy which it wants to collaborate with the Nigerian Government on.
This is with a view to ensuring that in the years to come, the development in the area of energy, he hoped, will metamorphose into economic transformation for the nation, he added.
