Nigeria’s Stanbic Bank and General Electric have signed an agreement for the financing of the mini plant projects for the power sector to the tune of $350 million.
The fund, according to the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganaga, will enable General Electric to build mini power plants to boost economic activities in industrial zones.
Aganga said GE is also making adequate provision for transfer of technology in terms of capacity building by partnering with firms from the United States and Europe.
The minister told State House correspondents after the signing of the agreement presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo: “Today, we are witnessing three major events; one is an agreement between GE and Stanbic Bank for the financing of the power sector.
“So, they are making available the sum of $350 million for the generation of mini power projects because that is going to be quicker to do and will help the economic activities in the country.
“We are talking of mini power plants where you need captive power in places like Kano for example, where you have a lot of people in the textile sector, where today, they rely on liquified petroleum fuel oil or LPFO.
“The cost of production is quite high because of lack of gas and power. They can have dedicated captive power for that sector for industrial zones. That is what it is for – financing mini power plants for our industrial zones. They are taking money from the bank to support our power project.
“The second signing today was that they brought in 10 of their suppliers, with five from the United States, three from Europe and they will be partnering with five Nigerian suppliers in terms of capacity development and transfer of technology.
“The whole idea is for them to become part of their supply chain in the assemblage of turbines. So, it is helping the small SMEs in the country and part of the programme is that they are designing credit guarantee and funds to support them.
“The last, which we will be doing later today, will be collaborating between the GE and the Bank of Industry in supporting and financing health care in the country. They also announced to the Vice President that GE are now considering floating engineering centre of excellence working with some of our universities because that is skill needed for the economy and for industrialization and they are looking at ways of partnering with SME of the larger companies in Nigeria to broaden their support for the MSME sector.
“So, we have significant progress and we are all delighted with GE progress. On the 10th of February, the VP will be hosting an event where is will be bringing all the financing partners to Nigeria to meet with investors in the power sector to see how they can support them and GE said they can be part of that and bring in risk capital.
“So, it has been a very successful partnership with GE and Nigeria. GE is also committed in investing in the locomotive industry and diagnostic centres for the health care centres.”
The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, who was also excited by the agreement, said it will benefit the country.
Nebo said: “With regards to this $350 million investment by GE, it is going to benefit Nigeria tremendously. All of us know that more than 50 per cent of our compatriots are not connected to power.
“This is part of the ways of coming to compliment what the Federal Government is doing in taking power to areas where we do not even have generation facilities whatsoever.
“It is to support the building and distribution of power using small turbines instead of these mega power plants, may be those of 20, 50 or even 15 megawatts that can be dedicated to industrial clusters, Agric clusters, should be made available in areas where there are power plants.”
Meanwhile, General Electrical and the Bank of Industry have announced plans to support small and medium enterprises in Nigeria in the infrastructure sector.
This was contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by the company’s Corporate Communications Manager, West Africa, Osagie Ogunbor.
According to the statement, the plan will see funding support to the tune of $500 million made available to critical sectors of the economy like healthcare, power and transportation.
It added that these sectors would have access to financing for equipment and service contracts as well as management and technical training over a period of at least five year.
Speaking at a briefing, the Managing Director of BOI, Evelyn Oputu, said that the initiative was intended to support the establishment, modernisation and expansion of high technology SMEs.
Oputu said that the initiative would also provide the companies with more competitive platform to recruit and retain highly skilled Nigerians currently with leading organisations outside the country.
According to Oputu, GE and BOI jointly anticipate that the programme will also attract additional foreign direct investments into the private infrastructure sector.
Lazarus Angbazo, the President/Chief Executive Officer of GE, commended BOI for aligning with the company’s commitment to working with relevant stakeholders to address infrastructure challenges in the sector.
According to Angbazo, the engagement is in line with the company’s country-to-country agreement with the Federal Government across critical sectors of healthcare, transportation and power.
Similarly, Jeff Immelt, the Global Chairman of GE, said he was pleased with the commitment of the stakeholders to address the infrastructure deficit in the country.
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