Power: Nigeria gets 24m Euro grants from EU, Germany

ABUJA—The European Union, EU, and the German Agency, GIZ, have agreed to provide grants worth about 24 million Euro to boost Nigeria’s Energy Support Programme, NESP. While the EU is willing to offer 15million Euro, the GIZ is offering nine million Euro.
Speaking at the Nigerian–German Energy Programme, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, said the proposed grant will assist the Federal Government to achieve  core objective of privatization of the sector.
He said the EU fund would not be utilized to build plants, but could be used to provide pilot schemes and other related projects in at least nine locations spread evenly across the country.
While ensuring the donors that the grants would be judiciously utilized, he said, “We need more support and partnership from Germany and the rest of the world, donor agencies, development partners and the EU as we do not have the capacity to solve the problems alone.”
In the area of capacity building, he said there is a huge gap in practically all aspects of power, hence government in post-privatized power sector must stand firmly to close the gap to realise its privatization objectives.
He added that the energy sector remained the key issue in the German–Nigerian relations, while recalling agreements and Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and President Goodluck Jonathan, the Permanent Secretary said the Germans will assist in diversifying Nigeria’s energy.
He said the country is naturally endowed with solar, bio mass and hydro energy resources, adding that there are 254 dams in Nigeria, and only a few had turbines provided in their designs; even at that the turbines are not activated, hence they are not in use.
“Noting that the level of renewable energy use in Nigeria is minimal in spite of our endowment, he commended past donor agency’s assistance in providing grant for Millennium Development Goals projects on energy mapping in the 774 Local Government Areas across the country”.
The Permanent Secretary also called action in addressing Nigerian’s deficiency in the areas of human and institutional capacity development.
The Senior Energy Adviser, GIZ, Klans Mitzlaff, in his presentation at the forum called for adequate support for the energy sectors training hub –the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN), to make it a national centre of excellence for human resources development in the energy sector.