World Bank To Offer Financial Help To Boost Nigeria’s Power Sector

In a bid to grow the power sector, the World Bank has promised to provide financial support.

Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of Finance disclosed this when she led Nigeria’s delegation to World Bank, IMF meetings in Washington.

According to her, the multilateral agencies were impressed with the work done by Babatunde Fashola and has pledged to give financial support.

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Meanwhile, Fashola during the Federal Executive Council, FEC meeting, presented a power plan, which was approved and secured the support of the financial institutions.

Adeosun said the multilateral agencies said the plan is realistic and that the minister would be getting a lot of support.

She said: “What the power sector recovery plan has done is to look at all the problems really honestly. The multilateral agencies have looked at the plan we have put together and they like it because, as they said — it is realistic

“We have really dimensioned all the issues from GenCos to DisCos to end users to metering, and one thing that everybody is very clear of is that it is a big problem. “So it is a large problem that will take some time to solve, but the most important thing is that there are milestones of what we are expecting to see.

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“The multilateral agencies have pledged their support financially, because those investments are tied to certain results. For example, if you look at the issues around the transmission, power is generated, but cant be evacuated because the transmission capacity is not there. So, just investing in the transmission capacity in certain areas will change the power outlook.

“From the impression I got yesterday from the meeting, they were optimistic that if we actually implement what we’ve planned, and the minister of power works and housing was very emphatic that he is going to drive the implementation.

“I feel quite optimistic that it is realistic. We are not saying throw away your generator by December, it is a realistic plan, but it is going to take time.

“If we have power, a lot of factories that have closed down can re-open. So, it ties with our Economic and Recovery Growth Plan.”

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