Government
Requires $18 Billion For Energy Needs
About
18 billion dollars is required annually for the 10 ten years to
meet Nigeria’s power and energy demands.
Out of this
amount, the federal government is only capable of providing six
billion dollars yearly.
The Minister of
National Planning Dr. Shamsudden Usman stated this in Abuja at
an interactive forum between the European Union and the Nigerian
Government.
The purpose of
the forum is to open dialogue between the European Commission
and Nigeria on political support from the 10th European
Development Fund in the energy sector.
Already,
European Commission consultants have carried out pre-feasibility
study to develop a profile for Nigeria’s energy sector.
Findings
Some of the
findings revealed that Nigeria’s power sector is being affected
by low electricity pricing, poor quality of supply,
unwillingness by customers to pay bills and excessive government
intervention.
All these
observations were supported by the Minister of National
Planning, who agreed that the power sector was inefficient at
the moment.
Dr. Usman
represented by the Secretary of National Planning Commission,
Silva Samoye said the major objective of the Yar’ Adua
administration was to make the energy sector prime mover of the
national economy by the year 2020.
According to
him, that explains why new projects have been embarked upon in
the power sector while the gas master plan has been fashioned
out to fully utilise gas resources.
He submitted
that all these, would require government funding to be
complemented by the private sector and agencies.
FRCN/Qasim/
Austeen/ Ahaziah
