Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, has said that there is already a big production of electricity in Nigeria, but that it is not getting to the population. He opined that development had to do with the need for a provision of stations and infrastructure on the grid.
He spoke when President Bola Tinubu recently met with him, in Germany on the sidelines of the G20 Compact with Africa Economic Conference. He signaled a willingness to address administrative and financial challenges in the sector.
Scholz said: “I know that there is a lot of work that has been done. There is already a big production of electricity in Nigeria, but it is not getting to the population. Of course, this has to do with the need for a provision of stations and infrastructure on the grid.
“Siemens has developed the plan and is ready to deepen implementation, but it is now up to your new government to take the follow-up action that you are now committed to taking. On the railway plans, Siemens will be very happy to do this when more progress is made on the power project which has been started already.”
Tinubu said the Federal Government under his administration was eager to partner with German companies, such as Siemens AG, to reform Nigeria’s power sector.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 established Siemens-backed Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) as an attempt to resolve the lingering challenges in the power sector and to expand the capacity for future power needs.
Tinubu, however, stated that there was a need for a review of the initiative to ensure the speedy execution of targeted projects in the power sector.
According to him, Siemens AG has positive impacts on the quantity and quality of Egypt’s electric power supply.
He assured of the readiness of his administration to ensure that the implementation of the PPI would now proceed with increased urgency and a more deliberate approach to project execution.
