Firm Boosts Financial Services Ecosystem
The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading PLC has said it plans to increase power supply to 5, 500 Megawatts (MW) in 2023 to boost electricity in the country.
The managing director of NBET, Mr Nnaemeka Ewelukwa said this on Wednesday in Lagos at the 2nd Capacity Workshop for Power Correspondents, Civil Society and other Stakeholders.
Ewelukwa said that NBET’s board headed by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has endorsed the repositioning of the company.
According to him, the repositioning is to make NBET
Africa’s leading integrated payments and digital commerce company, Interswitch, has further deepened its expansion beyond the shores of Nigeria with organisation of its first breakfast session in Sierra Leone.
At the session, topical industry issues were also discussed, and attendees were introduced to a variety of innovative products and solutions targeted at commercial banks, microfinance banks, become a market enabler/facilitator to allow it expedite market growth to “point of self-sustaining.
He said: ‘‘NBET is putting in a place a lot of initiatives that will improve power supply in the country. Under the first phase of such initiatives, it is expected that the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry will be able to generate, transmit and distribute 5, 500 MW and this power will be paid for. Following the success of this trial phase. a further 1,000 MW will be added to the activated contracts in the following year bringing the total to 6,500MW. This will improve capacity of the Electricity Distribution fintechs, other financial institutions, and the general public.
Speaking at the session, Olubunmi Aina, Group Head Sales, Payment Processing and Switching (Interswitch Purepay), stated that businesses in Sierra Leone are set to enjoy seamless business operations, especially as pertaining to payments.
He said, “At Interswitch, our core objective is to deliver an Africa where payments are a seamless and invisible part of everyday life,
Companies (DisCos) on incremental basis.”
Ewelukwa said that NBET would also establish a comprehensive Data hub which will provide critical information on electricity, gas customers and their geographical locations in the country.
The MD said that the hub would be a catalyst for investment decision making for emerging industries such as manufacturing of electric vehicles and solar panels. ‘‘NBET will also promote bilateral trading between Independent Power Plants (IPP) and commercial/industrial customers through an automated energy trading platform/exchange. and we have carried this vision with us for the past 20 years. Interswitch is committed to the advancement and penetration of digital payments in Africa as a whole. We continue to create innovative solutions that enable individuals and communities to prosper across the continent. Today, we are in the Sierra Leone market to provide customers and businesses with secure and convenient digital payments products and to enhance customer experience.”
For us at Nigerian Breweries Plc, we have recognised that there are two categories of people in our society that can really make a difference in the future of this great nation. That is why in 2019, we established the NB Empowerment Programme for youth and women. We also recognised that the pandemic, which had a lot of massive negative impact all over the world including Nigeria led to an increase in the level of unemployment.
There were less jobs for everyone to go around. Inflation also impacted all the fledgling businesses. So, we knew that we needed to support the communities and so we decided to start with our host communities. As the saying goes, charity begins at home, so, we decided to start with our host communities.
I think that is a phenomenon that is unique on its own. It bears restating that this initiative is focused on the disadvantaged group. That is, most of the people we are talking about or targeting for this initiative are not in the workplace, they are not able to run their own businesses talk less about having the opportunity to travel abroad. So, it is important to state that we go to the rural areas to empower this demographic.
Training has a multiplier effect as those who have been empowered with such training go ahead to train others.
First of all, we want to ensure that the empowerment programme is tailored towards specific needs. So, when we look at that community focus and host community prioritization, we were also looking at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are relevant. The first one is poverty. If you go to our communities, you will find out that we now have a large number of the disadvantaged group that we needed to bring into the income-earning bracket. Secondly, we also looked at SDG Goals (SDG Goal 5)- Gender Equality in ensuring that both men and women are brought into the income-earning bracket. By that, we mean decent work, decent economic growth, or having a befitting source of livelihood. So, we thought - Rather than fish for the youth and women, why not teach them how to fish? Through that, we will be able to achieve SDG No.10 of reducing inequality.
We are actually working with a blueprint. We have partners that we work with in terms of need assessment as well as the actual programme that the graduates go through.
We partner with universities depending on the programme that is available in various states. And after that, they get the certification, and they go through a graduation process, they receive relevant tools or equipment. On top of that, we go back to monitor their progress. There is a set process which we have followed successfully from 2019 till date.