By Stanley Opara with agency report

Monday, 6 Dec 2010

Africa Finance Corporation, a development bank partly owned by seven West African countries, plans to announce its first investment in Nigeria‘s electricity industry soon, the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Andrew Alli, has said.

”Nigeria is becoming attractive to foreign investors,” Alli was quoted to have said in an interview in Abuja on Friday. He, however, declined giving details of the project, Blomberg said in a report on Friday.

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Power, Alhaji Nuhu wya, had said on October 14, this year that the country needed investment of $10bn a year to meet a target of increasing generating capacity to 40,000 megawatts by 2020.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who has made the development of the power sector a key programme of his administration, announced on August 26 this year plan to end state control of the sector.

The economy, according to the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, will grow more than 10 per cent a year, if there is adequate power supply.

AFC is involved in a wind project in Cape Verde; a 340-megawatt power plant in Ghana, costing $450m and the Bakwena Corridor toll road north of Johannesburg, South Africa, said Alli. The bank is partly owned by Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Gambia.

The bank is seeking a credit rating so it can access funds to strengthen its financing operations, Alli has said on July 2. “We‘re working on it.”

 

Source: Punch