Barely one year to delivery, the Nigerian Electricity Road Map project under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), appears to be facing fresh hurdle that may derail or delay the execution and delivery of additional power to consumers as the Federal Government hands over the selection of local partners for the $2 billion Nigerian Electricity Roadmap Project to Siemens, a German firm handling the PPI. The Ministry of Power was initially slated to float a bid for the selection and contract awards.
But it is not yet clear if Siemens is willing to accept this responsibility as t6he firm rebuffed efforts to get them confirm the development.
Under the PPI, Siemens was tasked to ensure 7,000mw; 11,000mw and 25,000mw of power are delivered to consumers by 2021 and 2023, before further up-scaling supply to 25,000mw.
A Presidency source had told Vanguard that the government gave up the plan to directly engage the local partners following external pressures against exposing the project to political and other vested interests in the process of the contract award.
Vanguard learnt there was also considerations around making Siemens take responsibility for failures which may arise from the appropriateness of the technology being deployed as well as the local content issues.
The source stated: “The success of the initiative is tied to selecting credible, competent local partners to work as sub-contractors with Siemens. This nation had, in the past, suffered to re-pay foreign loans taken for projects that were poorly implemented or that were never implemented at all.
Source: All Africa
