FG Approves $64.2m for Electrification of Rural Oil Communities
Omololu Ogunmade
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday in Abuja approved $64.2million for electrification of some communities around the escravos areas of Delta State.
The federal government has also given an assurance that the worst days on flood are over as the level of water in Cameroun is declining.
Briefing journalists at the end of the weekly FEC meeting in the Presidential Villa, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said protest by affected communities in the past had stalled plans by the federal government to execute the Escravos to Lagos pipeline project.
According to him, the communities queried the rationale behind moving 50 per cent of gas from the host communities to supply power to other places when they did not have access to power supply.
Kachikwu who said since then, the escravos project had been stalled, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has hitherto been spending N18 million to fuel generators to power the communities.
However, he said with the approval of $64. 2 million by FEC yesterday, permanent structure to power the communities would finally be put in place within the next four or five years.
“The intervention of the council that we sought today was to seek approval of the council for the award of contract for the supply of power to contiguous communities that are around the escravos area as part of the ELBS scheme.
“You will understand that previously, we had approval to execute the escravos to Lagos pipeline system which was stalled because the host communities came and said ‘why will you move 50 per cent of the gas to provide power to other areas when the host communities did not have power supply?
“So, they stalled the project for a long time. Today, we approached the council to approve $64.235, 644 million to fund and also distribute the power within the immediate communities. The council was gracious to approve that to two specific companies. One is to build the power plant to supply power itself and the other day to distribute the power to all the affected communities
“We believe that with this, power will be provided to the immediate communities within a period of four, five years and it will be a permanent structure. In the absence of that, the only way we have been able to maintain peace in the communities is that the NNPC has to use generators to provide light to those areas which has been costing N18 million to enable us maintain peace in the communities . So, today, the council graciously approved $64 million to enable us supply power to those communities,” Kachikwu said.