Managing Director, NDDC
By Moses Patience Chat
About $27.3bn funding is being targeted to finance power and roads infrastructural projects in the Niger-Delta region by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), through partnership proposition. The Commission disclosed this in document titled, “A Sea of Opportunities in the Niger Delta Region,” which was made available to journalists in Abuja recently, where it outlined benefits that would be derived from the projects.
The NDDC informed that the Niger Delta Regional (NDR) Power Pool project would require about $13bn, while the East-West Coastal road project would gulp $24.3bn covering states in the region, namely: Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Abia, Imo and Ondo.
Giving details about the Niger Delta Regional Power Pool project, NDDC said, “the transmission network of 19 gas powered generation will link the nine BRACED commission states and supply power to the load centers to guarantee cheap, reliable, and sustainable power in the region at the cost of $13bn.
“This will entail a 330kV transmission network (the Niger Delta Regional Power Pool) that links the nine NDR states and supplies 7GW of subsidized power to the load centers, which are 27 dynamic industrial parks in one senatorial district; installation of power generation assets in each IP (industrial park); and construction of a regional transmission network to tie the PGA’s (power generation assets) together and engender interstate power trading,” the document read in part.
The document, which provided details about the power project, also stated that the East-West coastal road project would open up the Nigerian coastal corridor. It indicated that the road project would start from the Odukpani junction in Cross River state and would connect several communities, stretching 704km long, with 106km spurs and 180 bridges. NDDC said the road would terminate at the Ibeju, Lekki-Epe Expressway in Lagos State.
It said, “The proposed East-West coastal highway commences from Odukpani Junction in Cross River and terminates at Ibeju on the Lekki-Epe Expressway, connecting 1,000 communities. “The proposed highway travels 704km on the main alignment and about 106km of spurs straddling over barriers, island, forests, fresh swamps, mangrove swamps and waterways. The alignment passes through nine states: Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos.”
According to the Commission, the spurs are provided to connect the East-West coastal highway to centers of economic activities in the northern and central regions of the country. “It is to also create access to the coastline for maritime industries, tourism and recreational activities,” and that the cost of the road project would gulp $24.3bn.
NDDC also claimed that based on the plan, a management committee, Public Private Partnership Committee (PPPC) was constituted by the Managing Director of the Commission, Samuel Ogbuku, in January this year.