Nigeria committed to North Core Regional Interconnection Project – Abubakar
Oru Leonard
Honourable Minister of Power in Nigeria, Engr. Abubakar D Aliyu has assured the funding partners of North Core/Dorsale Nord Regional Interconnector Project consisting of Nigeria-Niger-Benin-Togo-Burkina Faso of Nigeria’s commitment to the actualization of the project.
Abubakar made this statement during a courtesy call today, 12th October, 2022 in his office by the Country Director, Nigeria Western and Central Africa Region, Shubham Chaudhuri and his team who have come for a joint midterm review mission of the project.
Responding to the issues of Social Safeguard payments (compensation of communities who the project will affect), the Minister said there is adequate budgetary provision to cater for them particularly in the 2022 budget assuring them that as soon as all required processes are put in place the compensation would commence. He said contractors can move to site where there are no encumbrances and stated the need for all funding partners to be aligned to avoid delay in the execution of the project. He assured them that adequate security measures are being put in place by all West Africa Power Pool Countries (WAPP) reminiscence that the Minister of Defence, Nigeria and all other defence ministers were present at the February, 2022 ground-breaking ceremony at Niamey, Niger to put in place measures as regards to security.
Speaking earlier, the Country Director, Nigeria western and Central Africa Region, Shubham Chaudhuri said as part of the objective of the joint mid-term review mission on the North Core Regional Interconnection Project by the World Bank, Africa Development Bank (AFDB) and the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) is to discuss the results achieved and constraint to the implementation of the remaining project activities and the Northern Corridor project; Social Safeguard payments steps in terms of resettlement action plan (RAP) implementation in Nigeria; Actions and implementation plan in order to ensure Nigeria electricity is expected by November, 2024.
Shubham Chaudhuri represented by senior energy specialist and project manager, Emmanuel Py further requested for adequate security along the corridors stating its importance to early completion of the project.
