BENIN CITY: Edo State Government Mr. Godwin Obaseki has express the readiness of his administration to partner energy giant SIEMENS Gas and Power Limited to establish a gas powered turbine that will actualize the generation of 1,000 megawatts of electricity within the next 24 months.
Obaseki made this known when he received members of senior management team of SIMENS Gas and Power Limited who paid him a courtesy visit in his office in government house in Benin City.
He said the government has set a goal of ensuring that the state produce one out of every four megawatts generated in the country. “Given our locational advantages been at the core of not only the transmission network but also the gas transmission network and realized that we are the cheapest point or location to generate electricity”.
“We will like to go straight away to begin our partnership and we thing our starting point is the human capacity development end. You know the technology and have done it for over 160 years. You can build turbine, you can installed it but what will sustain the effort is the people who are trained and knowledgeable enough. Our dream is to be the largest human capital suppliers in the country”.
He said his administration is racing against time as he will like his government and SIMENS to start right away by setting up a joint development committee to drive the entrepreneurial initiative.
Speaking on their mission in government house, the Managing Director of SIEMENS Gas and Power Limited Onyeche Tifase said they are in Government House to express their commitment to Edo State to electrify the state. “We are not just electrifying Edo with power generation solution, not just with transmission and distribution but also with ideas, knowledge and capacity to utilize this power”.
Tifase said the gestation period for the project is two years. She said there is an urgency to deliver power. “We can optimize that time line, we can make it much less or longer depending on the capacity we reach to develop”.
On the area of human capacity development, she said the organization will train pre-primary, primary and secondary school students from the ages of 4-18 years and also to equally train University students. “We have programme we deliver here in Nigeria for the youths not just for power but other areas that will develop from power like manufacturing, processing, renewable. Our training is quit broad and vast”.
Meanwhile the governor has inaugurated a six man joint development committee with SIMENS to be chaired by Prof. Julius Ihonvbere to undertake activities that will drive the entrepreneurial initiative in the state.
Obaseki said the committee would implement the electrifying Edo initiative which will cover electricity generation, transmission and distribution. He said the group will under study Edo State power requirement and opportunities so as to come up with a road map relying on the GIS study which the state will undertake.
“The committee will come up with a human development initiative which will cover but not limited to providing programme and courses spanning primary, secondary and tertiary educational level. The initiative should commence before the first quarter of 2017. The joint development committee will look at ways to help Edo state improve transportation infrastructure, looking at enhancing initiative available”.
He said the committee will also advised and direct appropriate attention to areas where corporate social responsibility initiative can be or should be under taken.
