By Onwa Ekor, Calabar
Piqued by the enormous losses incurred in terms of value of perishable goods, as well as, the dwindling economic activities, Cross River government says, it would build a symbiotic relationship with the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) at the federal level.
The governor, Prince Bassey Otu, made the disclosure when he received the Managing Director/CEO of the Agency, Mallam Abba Abubakar Aliyu and his team, at the Dan Archibong lodge temporary office of the governor, in Calabar.
“Our prime motivation, inspiration, focus and direction in this government has been on two things, energy and food security.
“You have touched the two areas very seriously when you said you can provide some mini grids for our agricultural cluster, it is very important because what our people are losing in terms of perishable goods put in terms of value, is enormous.
“We are trying to change that situation because what happen is, people come in here, go right into the farms to pick up these things at very cheap rates, but when you go to the market and see the same things that were picked so cheap turning into something else, is a situation which we want to check and address,” Otu stated.
The governor remarked that his predecessors had established many of these cluster industries in many locations across the state, but due to the vast land, it has been difficult to power the facilities, making his administration restless on how to get them activated.
Continuing, Otu disclosed that his administration is putting the proper framework on ground, to ensure the reforms are in place, admitting that “the law would have been out now but we discovered that Cross River is going to be the next exporter of power.”
“We discovered that the NIPP plant which we have here were generating close to 600MW and exporting all and at our locality here, we don’t have the power, we don’t have the electrodes, and at the end of the day we give excuses of captive power.
“We want to really capture power and export it to the locations. That particular set up is in a local environment, so we might need to export probably technically, to make sure that all the things we do are right, that framework is going to be put in place and the law will soon come into operation,” the governor remarked.
On the request to get the state involved in the counterpart funds in line with the Rural Electrification Funding procedure, Otu assured that the state will definitely live up to the expectations.
“I want to give you every assurance that we are ready to partner with you particularly on those areas of capital supplementation which you have mentioned.
“It is our motive to also make sure that we commoditize our environment on an ethical manner that would be able to address food security, not just to the State, but our programs in place, to feed Nigeria,” the governor said.
He further commended the team for its intervention in the University of Calabar, leading to the commissioning of a 7 megawatts generating plant that will provide both the institution and the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital with 24/7 electricity, imploring the team to get a special purpose vehicle to drive the process, to enable the power reach where it ought to.
Earlier, Aliyu informed that the University of Calabar is among the beneficiaries of its 7mw power project that would see to the institution and the Teaching Hospital boasting of 24/7 electricity.
The MD/CEO of the Agency also disclosed that REA has secured a funding of $750m, which utilization will start from August this year, urging the state to take advantage of the new Electricity Act signed by President Bola Tinubu, and key in properly.
“Under the Rural Electrification fund, we provide up to 70 percent funding to the state for any project that would be sited within that state but that is made available to only states that have paid 30 percent counterpart funding required, please we urge Your Excellency, to make this arrangement for the state to benefit,” he stressed.
Other requests, Aliyu tabled were an enabling environment for private developers, land for developers, accessibility to licenses and permits as well as data usage by State Electrification Agency Board to identify availability of mini grids, among others.
Contributing, the REA Executive Director (Technical Services), Umar Abba Umar, explained that under the 2023 capital projects, the Agency completed 7332 solar street lights, 1015 solar water pumps, 118 solar home systems, 91 re-extension projects and seven solar mini grids.
Umar also disclosed that Cross River in the 2023 projects benefitted from 15 solar lights project and a grid extension, adding that, for 2024, the Agency has 430 projects translating to N108 billion, an increase from the N32 billion appropriated in 2023.
