A consortium of five major Chinese Companies today visited the Ministry today, with a promise to foster a win-win mutually beneficial relationship aimed at creating relevant skills in the power sector, so as to ensure the creation of jobs for young Nigerians.
Speaking in Abuja, when the Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo received a delegation under the auspices of High Hope International SkyRun Corporation – the local partners of the consortium, he said that from the presentation made by the group and the high-powered delegation from the country’s envoys in China, it is authentic to do business with the group, especially as they have expressed interest in setting-up training platforms for Nigerians.
He promised to link the group up with the sector’s training arm-National Power Training Institute (NAPTIN) for development of training modules either here in Nigeria or to coordinate trainees to be sent to China for training.
Prof. Nebo expressed excitement over the Group’s capacity to participate in the entire value chain of electricity and therefore tasked the consortium to help the nation develop its capacity, “as we strive to attain vision 20/20/20 target of 20,000MW in the next 5 years and 40,000MW afterwards”.
He urged the consortium through its proposed institute to be involved in addition to capacity building, in knowledge of research sharing in the area of renewable energy. To this end, the Minister challenged the Chinese to manufacture high quality solar panels and train Nigerians in the art so as to assure all that solar panels from China can compete effectively with the ones from Europe and America.
The Minister also spoke about the need for the Group to work with Nigeria in its quest to embrace the energy efficiency initiative through energy saving bulbs, stressing “we are ready to work with the Group in developing template to institutionalize lighting that could save as much as 75% to 80% energy in local consumption”, he described such saving in energy as substantial as it could be available for other uses.
Prof. Nebo tasked the Group to invest in distributing power model, by which case a power company can generate energy from 10MW – 15MW within a small area, and make same available for distribution to the existing Disco in the locality.
He said now that the price of oil is on the downward trend in the international market, fossil fuel, diesel or black oil can be used to produce power for local distribution at minimal cost, adding that the Ministry will be ready to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chinese in the next few days.
The Permanent Secretary, Dr. Godknows Igali spoke about the need to set up a working group to fast track the signing of MoU with the Consortium, assuring that the group will enjoy absolute freedom as there would be no restriction.
He also promised the group that the enabling laws are in place, just as je assured them of assistance in the area of contacts with relevant agencies.
The Permanent secretary called on the consortium to take advantage of the various incentives and opportunities that are available in the nation’s power sector, adding that no regime has done so much for the sector than President Goodluck Jonathan’s.
Earlier, Fouad Animashaun on behalf of the consortium had informed the Minister that the five Chinese companies have been working in Nigeria in the last 10 years; assuring that the Chinese are ready to work with the Ministry as well as take its officials to China to see things for themselves in China.
He said the aim of the visit is to showcase capacity of the Chinese consortium to become major players in all areas of energy value chain, thus helping to strengthen Sino/Nigeria Relations.
