General Electric, GE and Stanbic Bank have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide $350 million for the financing of mini power plants to service industrial areas.
On completion of the projects, GE has also agreed to ensure prompt transfer of technology by building the capacity of Nigerians to run the plants effectively.
Towards this end, GE is partnering with some firms in America and Europe, Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga told State House correspondents after the GE management held a meeting with Vice President Namadi Sambo on Friday in Abuja.
According to Aganga, building mini power plants in industrial zones will boost economic activities in the states.
The minister spoke further, “Today, we are witnessing three major events; one is an agreement between GE and Stanbic Bank for the financing of the power sector.
“So, they are making available the sum of $350million for the generation of mini power projects because that is going to be quicker to do and will help the economic activities in the country.
“We are talking of mini power plants where you need captive power in places like Kano for example, where you have a lot of people in the textile sector, where today, they rely on Liquify petroleum fuel oil or LPFO.
“The cost of production is quite high because of lack of gas and power. They can have dedicated captive power for that sector for industrial zones. That is what it is for- financing mini power plants for our industrial zones. They are taking money from the bank to support our power project.
“The second signing today was that they brought in 10 of their suppliers, with five from the United States, three from Europe and they will be partnering with five Nigerian suppliers in terms of capacity development and transfer of technology.
“The whole idea is for them to become part of their supply chain in the assemblage of turbines. So, it is helping the small SMEs in the country and part of the programme is that they are designing credit guarantee and funds to support them.
“The last which we will be doing later today, will be collaborating between the GE and the Bank of Industry in supporting and financing health care in the country. They also announced to the Vice President that GE are now considering floating engineering center of excellence working with some of our universities because that is skill needed for the economy and for industrialization and they are looking at ways of partnering with SME of the larger companies in Nigeria to broaden their support for the MSME sector.
“So, we have significant progress and we are all delighted with GE progress. On the 10th of February, the VP will be hosting an event where is will be bringing all the financing partners to Nigeria to meet with investors in the power sector to see how they can support them and GE said they can be part of that and bring in risk capital.
“So, it has been a very successful partnership with GE and Nigeria. GE is also committed in investing in the locomotive industry and diagnostic centers for the health care centers,” Aganga said.
Minister of Power, Prof Chinedu Nebo, who was also excited by the agreement, said it will benefit the country.
He said, “With regards to this $350 million investment by GE, it is going to benefit Nigeria tremendously. All of us know that more than 50 percent of compatriots are not connected to power.
“This is part of the ways of coming to compliment what the federal government is doing in taking power to areas where we do not even have generation facilities whatsoever.
“It is to support the building and distribution of power using small turbines instead of these mega power plants, may be those of 20, 50 or even 15 megawatts that can be dedicated to industrial clusters, Agric clusters, should be made available in areas where there are power plants”.
