The Federal Government on Monday signed a roadmap seeking to nearly triple power in partnership with the German Government and Siemens AG.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who met with the president of the German technology firm, Siemens AG, Joe Kaeser, said the partnership will help achieve “7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021 and 11,000 megawatts by 2023”.
Only about 4,000 megawatts reliably reaches consumers despite there being over 13,000 megawatts of power generation capacity.
“Our intention is to ensure that our cooperation is structured under a government-to-government framework. No middlemen will be involved so that we can achieve value for money for Nigerians,” Buhari said.
The President expressed worries that though te initiative may not solve all the demands facing the power sector, it has the potential of addressing a significant amount of the electricity challenges Nigeria has faced for decades.
Despite being the largest producer of energy in Africa, Nigeria has struggled to supply electricity throughout the country for decades.
The government is also planning to sell 10 electricity generation companies to private investors this year to boost power supply.
The government has set up a committee for the sale of the remaining companies established under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP).