Nigeria is set to revive the 40-year old abandoned Mambilla hydropower project after the federal government of Nigeria allocated money in its 2020 bugdet. The budget, according to the Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, is in line with the Federal Government’s plan to reform the power sector.
The Mambilla hydropower project
Former Minister of Power Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, had said that the construction of the 40-year-old Mambilla hydropower project would cost US $5.72bn, adding that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had already approved the amount which would be raised as a loan from the Chinese Government.
“They (Chinese) have the technology. They have done it before. We are now trying to negotiate the final tranche of the loan,” he said. He explained that the Federal Government would put in 15% of the cost of the project as counterpart funding.
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“We have received Expression of Interest (EOI) from 116 Nigerian companies for the construction. They are interested in providing security, banking services, insurance of goods, transport, logistics,” he added. Fashola further revealed that the government was now in the process of drawing the guidelines for the procurement and that it was Nigerians who stood to benefit the most.
The project will require 31,240,000 bags of cement, 18,981,000 metric tonnes of aggregate gravels, stones, granite and sand to mix the cement. 42,000 tonnes of steel will also be needed during the construction. With so many bags of cement needed, there will be a significant number of drivers needed also to transport the bulk commodity.
