The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of the World Bank, and cement giant, Lafarge Nigeria Limited have signed a financing deal for the construction of a 260 Megawatts power plant to be sited in Ewekoro, Ogun State.
Mr. Timothy Oyedeji, deputy director/head of Media at the Ministry of Power, disclosed this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Thursday.
While IFC is the lead arranger for the financing, Wartsila-Development and Financial Services Company based in Finland is part of the Lafarge consortium that have concluded arrangement for the construction of the power plant.
Performing the signing ceremony in Abuja, Mr. Muhammad Wakil, minister of State (Power), described the event as a milestone which underscored the need to fast-track the nation’s on-going privatisation exercise arguably described as the biggest in the world.
He said the event would not have been possible but for the doggedness of President Goodluck Jonathan in ensuring that nothing derails the power sector reform.
Wakil said that the Jonathan had also given a marching order to all cabinet members to be Ambassadors in attracting foreign investors.
This, he said, was borne out of the realisation that a lot of resources would be required in the power sector’s new direction which is private sector driven.
The minister used the opportunity to call on genuine investors to take advantage of the conducive environment expressed in adequate legislative framework, market depth and political will. He added that potential investors were assured of higher yields on their investment.
Speaking on behalf of the consortium, Lafarge/CEO, Nigeria and Benin, Guillaume Roux, assured that the World Bank Energy Business plan was supportive of the Nigerian power sector because of the visible achievements so far recorded in the on-going privatisation exercise.
He said that his group was determined to leverage on all resources that would be required to support the sector, adding that the project would be realised in record time.
Roux said that on completion of the project, it would contribute to increase the nation’s power generation capacity and bring about a substantial leap to supply end of the electricity value chain in Nigeria.
He said Lafarge had been in the fore front of embedded power source as the company in the recent past had expressed its readiness to put on the national grid excess power produced from its cement plant.
It is expected that of the 260MW to be produced from the joint venture, at least 220MW would be available to the national grid.