Published November 13th 2024
By Chinwendu Eugene
The Federal Government of Nigeria has disclosed plans to source from the private sector, part of the 10 billion dollars required to provide regular electricity across Nigeria within the next five to 10 years.
This formed the crux of the deliberation when the Director General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Dr Jobson Oseodion Ewalefoh paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of Power Chief Adebayo A. Adelabu, on Tuesday in Abuja.
In a statement signed by Ifeanyi Nwoko, Acting Head, Media and Publicity, says the duo agreed that in view of the funding and technical requirement needed to advance the power sector in Nigeria, it had become imperative to seek private sector input through Public Private Partnership (PPP)in co-financing and providing expertise that will ensure optimal performance of power infrastructure.
Speaking during the meeting, the Director General of the PPP regulatory body said that in view of the importance of power to the economic development of Nigeria, optimizing performance of existing infrastructure as well as funding new ones was imperative.
He acknowledged the challenges in the sector were hydra-headed and went beyond funding alone, adding that with such inter-agency collaboration and partnership with the private sector, the limitations can be addressed.
Reacting to a comment by the Minister, the DG said that through its regulatory processes, the ICRC can midwife private sector investment of part of the $10bn in the power sector to provide regular electricity, attract more foreign direct investment to other sectors and ultimately grow the economy.
“Revamping the power sector requires planning, it involves investments and it takes time. So, we need to collaborate to solve the issues in this sector.
“The investment required in power is very huge and government cannot fund it alone, so we have to leverage on the financing capacity of the private sector. That is why the ICRC was set up to regulate this leverage.
“The Commission is poised to regulating the processes of attracting investment to the power sector”.
