• Target 10,000mw, 2300 jobs in Aba, others
• Manufacturing, training facilities for Calabar
NIGERIA Thursday recorded a milestone in her investment drive as the Federal Government and General Electric (GE) company of the United States (U.S.) sealed a $1billion (N158 billion) deal to boost the power sector in the next five years.
And the growing profile of Cross River State as a preferred investment destination was underlined with a plan to establish a manufacturing/assembly and training facilities in Calabar.
At a ceremony held at Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, Trade and Investment Minister, Olusegun Aganga, signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of the Federal Government while the Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GE, Mr. Jeff Immelt, led other top executives to endorse on behalf of the company.
Aganga explained that GE's proposed investment in Nigeria was based on the country's positive macro-economic indicators.
The new deal also takes care of additional investment in the service workshops in Port Harcourt and Onne in Rivers State.
The deal, which comprises $250 million capital expenditure and over $800 million incremental spending on local sourcing of goods and services, is expected to create 2,300 jobs and make Nigeria the regional hub for GE's manufacturing, service and innovation in Africa. It will also support the company's power generation, oil and gas production and exploration activities.
GE has also taken concrete steps to actualise its recent promise to work with Nigerian companies to build power plants to generate 10,000 megawatts of electricity in the country.
Also yesterday, the firm sealed a landmark agreement with Geometric Power Limited for the construction of a 450mw power plant in Aba, the commercial city of Abia State for $500 million.
The joint development agreement was sealed by top management of both firms in Abuja led by Immelt, and promoter of Geometric Power Limited and former Power Minister, Prof. Bart Nnaji.
Immelt said the investment was a demonstration of the company's confidence in the Nigerian economy.
The company says it intends to provide one-year to four-year training programmes locally and internationally for repair engineers, welders, fabricators, machinists and special processing."
The President and CEO of the company in the country, Lazarus Angbazo, assured that Nigerians would make up 90 per cent of the staff and management of the manufacturing facility.
Cross River State's Acting Governor, Efiok Cobham, gave the commitment of the Calabar government in ensuring that the investment takes off as soon as possible.
He described GE's decision to site the facilities in Calabar as a development that would be mutually beneficial.
On the Aba project, Immelt said: "By this agreement, GE is initiating a full realisation of its plan to develop with Nigerian companies up to 10,000mw of power in Nigeria. Both companies will bring their respective strengths to achieve synergy in reaching financial close for this project as quickly as possible. Under this agreement, the team will employ GE technologies in the full realisation of the project."
And drawing from the anticipated success of the pact with GE, Nnaji urged other Nigerian firms to take advantage of the American company's 10,000mw plan for the country to invest in the power sector. He spoke of how such local firms could tap the agreement the Federal Government signed last year with the United States Export-Import (EXIM) Bank to provide $1.5 billion credit facility to firms using American goods and services.
On the ongoing 140mw plant, which his firm has been building in Aba, he re-affirmed that it would be completed in March.
In an interview, he disclosed that Geometric has gone far with Power Purchase Agreement discussion with the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET).
On the deal with GE, Nnaji said: "The plant will be ready in not more than three years. GE will be deeply involved in the funding, the technologies, and deployment of human capital as well as ownership.
"This is the kind of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which Nigeria needs, and this is why I want other players in the fast- growing electricity business in Nigeria to start to take advantage of the tremendous investment opportunities unleashed by both the power sector reform and the MoUs to work for the rapid growth of our national economy by helping the sector to leapfrog. Electricity is central to our national development. It does seem that many of our people do not seem to fully appreciate yet the great opportunities which perceptive, far-sighted and careful international investors have now identified in Nigeria.
"It speaks volumes that GE, a Fortune 500 company which was in 2011 ranked the sixth largest company in the United States by gross revenue and is a big brand in energy, technology infrastructure, capital finance, consumer and industrial products, is now taking a radical interest in our country."
He recalled how GE became the first indigenous privately-owned company in Nigeria to build a power station.
The Guardian