* Maps N82.5bn for 13 roads
‎From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, approved a power sector recovery ‎plan which comprises of policies and actions that will create a ‎viable sector that is privately run.
It also approved the construction and rehabilitation of several roads in 12 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja at the cost of N82.5 billion.‎
Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Power, Works and ‎Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said the power sector recovery programme will also check ‎service delivery by Distribution and Transmission Companies as well as ‎the whole value chain.
“The programme comprises of many pet policy actions, operational and
financial interventions that needs to be carried out by government to ‎improve transparency service delivery, performance of DISCOS, ‎transmission company and the entire value chain in order to create a ‎more viable power sector that is private sector run” he said.‎
Th‎e highlights of the programme include how to simplify and reduce the cash deficits that have accumulated ‎as a result of previous unilateral reductions of tariff by the last administration during the run-up to the elections.
The Goodluck Jonathan administration had in March 2015 reduced by 50 percent electricity tariff in the country.
‎The reduction was done two months after the cut in the pump price of petrol that year ‎to remove collection losses from customer tariff under the multi-year tariff order.‎
Fashola listed other highlights to include “how to make the DISCOS viable, accountable and responsive to customers, ensure stability of the grid and expansion of the grid, transparency and communication within the sector and also processes for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) debts‎ and how to improve sector governance, our roles in the buzz the quality of personnel on the board of the DISCOS.
“‎It addresses access to renewable energy especially in rural areas using mini-grids and stand alone solutions and how we are going to carry out the solutions that have been developed for 37 federal universities and seven tertiary hospitals. It also addresses how to solve the Niger Delta problem and also how to ensure there is a stable and predictable foreign exchange policy for the sector so that it is somewhat protected from sudden head winds of the volatility of the foreign exchange market so that they can plan and deliver. It also highlight how to address the issue of vandalisation at consumer and production levels of pipelines and so on as this will help bring confidence to the market and stimulate the appetite that currently exists globally for Nigeria’s power sector.
“We see a lot of people who want to invest but some of them are tied to what other international financial institutions do‎ and the institutions are also waiting to see us commit to these things”, he said.‎
Fashola said Council also approved the construction of 12 roads in some states across at a bill of N80 billion. The roads are in Adamawa, Taraba, Sokoto, Zamfara, Bauchi, Plateau, Osun, Kwara, Kano, Oyo, Kaduna and Kano.
He said council also gave approval ‎for the engineering and consultancy design for access road 1 and 2 to link Asaba in Delta State and Onitsha in Anambra State to link the Second Niger Bridge project. The consultancy costs is N150.8m.
“Subsequent to the award of further works of the Second Niger Bridge we have started work now by this approval on the design of the link road that will connect the two states to the bridge. The design is expected to be completed in six months and we will start procurement and as the bridge advances, we can then connect the two states. The contract sum is N150,840 million” he said.
The Second Niger Bridge was flagged off Jonathan in 2014 at the sum of N117
billion. The contract was awarded to Julius Berger in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP)
arrangement, which was expected to link business arteries of the South East with the South West and North.

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