Fashola seeks Egypt’s support on meter manufacturing in Nigeria

THE Minister of Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola has called for Egypt’s support on the manufacturing of meters in Nigeria as against importation from other countries.

He made the call when the Assistant to the President on strategy and National Projects of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Engr Ismail Sherif paid him a visit in his office yesterday.

He said that the government of Egypt would be given the opportunity to support the existing company partnering in meter provision.

“This is a time of high need of metre provision in the country and meter supply has become an issue by which the Federal Government made a clear commitment to renewing and expanding the country’s infrastructure.

“A lot of government funding is committed to power, construction of bridges, roads, airports, seaports among others in order to create a globally competitive Nigerian economy,” the minister said.

He also maintained that obsolete distribution network has contributed to the inadequate power supply in the country as power is being generated at 1000mw yearly.

Although he noted that Nigeria has not invested so much in power in the past, there is ten years transmission plan to address the challenge of power transmission.

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“So we need investments in the distribution end of our power value chain. We have a 10-year transmission power plan to increase transmission capacity to transmit energy through the distribution companies.

“Across the country now, we have close to 90 transmission projects in different stages of completion on the expansion of substation, expansion of existing capacities, conducting on existing, total reconstruction, among others.

Earlier, Mr Ismail Sherif expressed satisfaction at the long-standing bilateral agreements between Egypt and Nigeria, stressing that the country is available to providing assistance to Nigeria on the several mega infrastructure projects going on in Nigeria.

He identified trade as the common interest between Egypt and Nigeria relating it to the several projects that the Arabians are doing across Nigeria.