Perm. Sec. in the Ministry of Power describes JICA as Nigeria’s ally in critical power sector development.

[FMINigeria]

                        The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Dr. Godknows Igali has described the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), as one of Nigeria's most reliable and dependable partner, as the body has intervened in education, water, health and now power sectors.

Speaking at the opening session of a one-day interaction platform of JICA Advisors for Power Development Planning with top officials of the Ministry of Power in Abuja, Dr. Igali said that available record shows that the JICA team has made significant progress in identifying some areas of assistance in the power sector but added that more assistance would be required in the area of rural electrification.

The Permanent Secretary also acknowledged the contribution of the agency in the extensive review of the engineering design of the Zungeru and Mambilla hydro power projects so also is its positive contribution to the road map on power sector reform, National Load Demand study and the competitiveness of combined cycle power plants.

He assured the gathering of the determination of Government to leverage on all the technical inputs from the Japanese, "For us to achieve the aims of the power sector reform, we are required to take advantage of opportunities for training especially of our young ones as Japan has a lot of experience in hydro and other renewable energy mix".

Other areas where Nigeria required Japanese assistance apart from power generation, he said is the desire to build a work class power sector which brought to fore the need to provide infrastructure for the optimal evacuation of power produced, hence a need to explore non-grid power sources which require JICA's ass

Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria