Monday, July 06, 2009

The Federal Government plans to generate 340 megawatts of electricity from Gurara Dam, originally built for water supply to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Mr Hazat Sule, the Chief Press Secretary to the FCT Minister, said in a statement in Abuja that government was determined to realise the  6,000 megawatts electricity target promised the nation by December.The statement said: “The drive to meet the target is still on track, because all hands are on deck to realise it.’’ It said other advantages government intended to tap from the Gurara Dam project included large scale all-year-round mechanised irrigation farming, livestock and fishery production.The statement said the FCT Minister, Alhaji Adamu Aliero, led a Presidential team, including the two Ministers of Agriculture and Water Resources, Dr Abba Ruma and Mrs Fidelia Njeze, as well as the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Dr Tanimu Kurfi, on a tour of the dam at the weekend.It said the tour was to enable the team to conduct an on-the-spot assessment of work at the dam, and assure Nigerians that the promise of 6,000 megawatts of electricity generation would be kept, given the state of work on project.The statement quoted Aliero as reiterating that President Umaru Yar‘Adua was committed to providing stable power supply to the country, to stimulate economic activities….

Chairman of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Imo, Abia Branch, Dr. Frank S.U. Jacobs, made this disclosure, in a chat with Vanguard on the effects of poor public power supply on the industrial growth of the two states (Imo and Abia).

“An estimated 60 million residents use generators of varying sizes. In the last one year, average residential expenditure in fuelling power generators climbed to an all-time high of N1.56 trillion, about $13.35 billion per annum”, Dr. Jacobs lamented.He was of the view that, “similar level of expenditure on private power generation has characterised the affairs of industrial and commercial power consumers”, adding that early last year, independent investigations recorded about half the figures outlined above.

He recalled with grief that the Senior Private Sector Specialist at the World Bank, Mr. Steven Dimitryer, noted that “Nigeria experienced the worst electricity crisis among its contemporaries, which underscores the nightmarish generation, distribution and supply in the country.”Dr. Jacobs insisted that “electricity crisis is the most important infrastructure bottleneck in Nigeria today”, adding that all types of firms in Nigeria experience power outages and 85 percent of them own generators as alternative source of power generation.

“The present condition of manufacturers in this part of Nigeria does not leave much to be cheerful. The efforts of government have continued to totter. We are speedily losing hope”, Jacobs lamented.

 Adapted from Vanguard Newspaper, 26^th January 2009

"You can generate electricity with bio-diesel from Jatropha" - DG, ECN