6,000mw power target report card: Time gone 45 weeks (87%) Money spent $5.08bn (100%) Score card 2,900mw (48%) – Daily Trust
November 6, 2009 by Bunmi Awolusi
With seven weeks left in the Federal Government’s promised 6,000megawatts power generation target by year’s end, the country currently generates 2,900mw of power even though all the $5.09 billion [about N762.93 billion] special intervention funds for the sector this year have been spent. This much became clear yesterday from the speech by Minister of Power Mr. Remi Babalola at his Ministerial Press Briefing.
Babalola said the country’s current power generation capacity is within the range of 2,900 mw to 3,000mw. He said since February this year, the Federal Government has injected $5.09 billion (N762.93 billion) into the National Integrated Power Projects. He said the NIPP projects are expected to add 4,770mw to the national grid by the end of 2011. The first unit of the project is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2011, he said.
The administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo had spent some $10 billion on the same NIPP projects, but none of them was completed at the end of Obasanjo’s tenure in May 2007.
