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By Nasir Kura
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved another foreign loan of $247.3 million from three international monetary agencies for infrastructure development, Minister of Finance Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said on Wednesday.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting in Abuja, the minister said $150 million would be obtained from the African Development Bank (ADB) for rural electrification projects in the country.
She said $50 million would be obtained from Africa Grow Together Fund for more electrification projects and $20 million from the French Development Agency for onward lending to Lagos state government for strategic urban roads rehabilitation.
“The project aligns with the strategy of federal government on electrifying rural community. The project has four components, first is solar hybrid mini-grid for rural economic development, the second is productive appliances equipment for up-grid communities and the third is energising education while the fourth component is institutional capacity building.
“The impact of the project when fully implemented, about 500,000 people will be able to have access to electricity for about 105,000 households. The maximum power that will be generated will be 76.5 megawatts installed generating capacity part of which is 68,000 megawatts of solar. Eight universities will benefit from this scheme and about 20,000 small, micro, medium enterprises across different communities in the nation.
“The second approval the north Core dorsal regional transmission project. This is a project that is part of the pipeline for the pipeline for the west Africa power pull priority projects. The intention is for the creation of regional power pull in the region of west Africa. The post project aims to connect Nigeria, Niger, Benin Republic, Togo, Burkina Faso with a high voltage 330 kilowatts transmission line, to facilitate energy trade amongst participants,” she said.
The minister also spoke on the contentious petrol subsidy removal, stressing that the federal government was yet to find a workable formula to cushion the effect on the most vulnerable Nigerians.
On the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the country to remove fuel subsidy, the minister said government appreciates the concerns raised by the organisation but that Nigeria is a unique country as what works for others may not be operable within its context.
