Rural Electrification Agency says it has signed 267 deals worth around $395 million to provide electricity to unserved and underserved Nigerians under the Nigeria Electrification Projects. Managing Director Salihijo Ahmad told reporters in Abuja that the Nigeria Electricity Program was currently financing a $1 million World Bank loan and a $200 million African Development Bank (AfDB) loan to provide electricity to Nigerian communities. He said that about $64.8 million of the commitments had been disbursed to private sector partners to implement the projects. him, the program is expected to provide reliable and clean off-grid electricity supply to 705,000 households, 90,000 micro, small and medium enterprises. Ahmad said that over the years, REA had grown from simply an implementer of Fed General Government projects in the sector to become a hub and enabler of business in the sector.
He said the deals signed with private developers led to more than a million connections across the country. “The REA has a mandate to bring power to underserved and marginalised Nigerians. How this is done depends on where the funding comes from.” Under the rural electrification strategic plan, we have targets to reach Nigerians across the country and at the moment the numbers are estimated at 80 million. people,” he said. “To achieve this requires a lot of funding and what we are used to doing is every year we wait and we get the money from the government from the budget, we go to the site and then we implement the projects.” If you’re going to do this for the next 100 years, you’re not going to be able to meet those goals, so it became important for the agency to make sure that its mandate doesn’t end with implementation,” he said.
Ahmad said that with the Rural Electrification Fund, which is driven by the private sector, REA became a hub and enabler to ensure that funding comes from different areas in order to fulfill his mandate. “Now government money is used as an enabler to attract private investment.” For example, for rural electrification in the background, you have a capital subsidy where if a project costs N100 million, that subsidy will come in, it can be 50-60 percent and the private developer will put up the rest of the money.” community and settle with the community for the rest of the money,” he explained.
Ms. Anita Otubu, Head of Program Management Unit, NEP explained that the program had five components. She said these include the $213 million solar hybrid mini-grid, $75 million stand-alone solar home energy systems, $250 million energy education program. Others were equipment for energy efficiency and productive use of electrical appliances for 20 million dollars and technical assistance for 37 million dollars. She said that so far, 67 mini-grids had been completed with 995,396 solar home systems deployed, adding that about 1,151 jobs had been created.
