By Innocent Obasi
The federal government is expected to receive 22 power transformers and mobile stations from Germany between November of this year and May of next year.
President Muhammadu Buhari gave the hint on Wednesday when he hosted representatives of Siemens Energy AG at the State House, Abuja.
Buhari expressed delight at the remarkable progress in the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), informing that the first batch of two power transformers had already been supplied by Siemens and would be put into service in November.
“This is in spite of production challenges and constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has severely impacted global production and supply chain,” he said.
The president pledged the dedication of the federal government to the collaboration with Siemens and the German government to enhance electricity generation in Nigeria. He urged top officials of Siemens not to relent in making sure that the government’s commitment to Nigerians in delivering the PPI was achieved.
Buhari told Christian Bruch, president and CEO of Siemens Energy, Nadia Haakansson, CEO of Siemens Africa, and Seun Suleiman, CEO of Siemens Nigeria, that the outcome of the partnership between Nigeria and Siemens will produce vital business enablers and chances to include young, entrepreneurial Nigerians in various endeavours.
The president welcomed the training programme of 200 Nigerian engineers on network development studies under the PPI, calling it “a very important up-skilling and knowledge transfer process”.
He expressed excitement for the 5,000 engineers who would be trained by the end of the programme.
Buhari recalled his promise to Nigerians at the inception of his administration to improve electricity supply by resolving capacity deficit across the sector’s value chain. He thanked the German government, which under former Chancellor Angela Merkel supported the country in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Siemens.
He also expressed his gratitude to Chancellor Olaf Scholz for Germany’s sustained support of the PPI.
“A plan to deliver capacity improvements of 2,000 megawatts in the transmission-distribution interface is now firmly the focus of PPI Phase I,” Buhari told the Siemens team.
“In April 2022, the inister of power briefed me on the outcome of his visit to Germany, where he held meetings with Siemens executives. That visit was fruitful in emphasising the need to expedite delivery of the pilot PPI project, elements of which have started arriving in the country,” he said.
He expressed gratitude to the German government for approving Euler Hermes to provide cover for the financing of the PPI pilot project, stating that this will serve as a model for the subsequent phases.
Acknowledging that the overall frameworks for technical and commercial arrangements were being concluded, he said, “However, what I would like to see is that we attain completion of the entire transaction process by December 2022. This will entrench the mandate of the PPI in full committal terms.”
