The Federal Government has mobilised contractors to sites to complete all abandoned rural electrification projects.
It disclosed this through the Managing Director/Chief Executive of the Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu. REA is an agency of the Federal Government responsible for rural electrification nationwide.
Aliyu disclosed this during a chat with newsmen in Lagos on the sidelines of the launch of Bellazir Energy Limited on Tuesday. The REA boss confirmed that he inherited several abandoned projects from his predecessor, but none are abandoned at the moment.
“We met a number of abandoned projects. I’m not sure if they are up to a thousand, and to date, there’s no single abandoned project. We have, one by one, paid all the outstanding to contractors, mobilised them back to the sites, and completed all these projects.
“I’m not sure there’s a single abandoned project, maybe incomplete based on the fact that the budget provision is not enough to conclude it. But we don’t have abandoned projects in REA at the moment,” he stated.
Speaking further, Aliyu disclosed that the agency has many key initiatives to reduce electricity gaps in Nigeria.
According to him, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has approved the implementation of the Renewable Energy Asset Management Company.
The company, he said, will warehouse all the big REA projects on its balance sheet, adding that the agency is leveraging the balance sheet to raise more funding. He noted that the agency is planning to raise up to N1tn for project execution.
“There are a number of key initiatives now that the Rural Electrification Agency is looking at. One is the implementation of the Renewable Energy Asset Management Company for which the Honourable Minister of Power has given us approval.
“This is a company that will warehouse all the big REA projects on its balance sheet and leverage that balance sheet to raise more funding. We are looking at raising close to a trillion naira for us to continue to implement projects,” he said.
He listed other ongoing initiatives, including the proposed Renewable Energy University, the energisation of universities, and others.
“We are also looking at the establishment of the Renewable University, which has started. A consulting company is doing a feasibility study for the establishment of that. We are looking at completing the Energising Education Phase Three, which is eight universities that we are about to complete.
“This includes the University of Yola, the University of Port Harcourt, the University of Uyo, the Federal University of Technology in Imo, the Federal Universities in Nasarawa and Lokoja.
“Also, we are looking at starting Phase Four, which covers another eight sets of universities — Obafemi Awolowo University, the University of Ibadan, the University of Lagos, the Federal University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Amadu Bello University, the University of Benin, Universities in Taraba and Jigawa,” he added.
Speaking on photovoltaic solar panel production in Nigeria, the REA boss said he had visited a PV manufacturing plant in Ikotun, Lagos, to inspect its standard.
“I came to Lagos to visit one of the PV manufacturing plants. If you can remember, there has been controversy over whether the federal government is banning the importation of PV panels or not. One of the things that we are promoting is to make sure that there is localisation of the manufacturing of PV panels in the country, and we visited one of the companies here in Ikotun with a 100-megawatt capacity.
“We have seen the production line, we have seen their level of quality control, and the standards of the product they are producing. We had an engagement with them and see how we will continue to crystallise such kind of investments in the country,” he said.
On Bellazir Energy, he described the launch of the new fuel distribution company as a way of promoting gender inclusivity.
He mentioned that Bellazir intends to venture into the renewable energy space soon.
