The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the payment of $43.3 million as the remaining part of its contribution to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fund for international development, Information Minister, Labaran Maku, has said.
The money is expected to be paid in instalments between 2013 and 2020.
Mr Maku, who briefed journalists after the weekly Council meeting, said the approval came following a memo brought to council by Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, seeking approval to complete the payment of a pledge which was made in Vienna in 1976 to contribute to the fund - which enables oil-producing countries to put aside some money to assist countries that do not produce oil.
“In 1976, Nigeria made a promise to contribute $177.7 million to the fund and over this period the country has been making its own contribution, but earlier this year there was a meeting of the fund in Vienna and there was a need for all member countries to complete their own contribution.
Nigeria has a balance of $43.3 million to pay to this fund. So, today, the Minister of Finance brought a memo which council approved to enable Nigeria pay this contribution to OPEC. The money will be paid instalmentally between 2013 and 2020. This fund is very important because it has helped a number of developing countries particularly in the South to cope with some of the pressures they go through.”
Mr Maku also said Council received the report of the Ibrahim Bunu-led Presidential Project Assessment Committee. The President had insisted there was need for the Federal Executive Council to listen to the report sector by sector and the committee, at Wednesday’s meeting, started with the power sector, to be followed next week by the one on works.
Progress on power generation
Mr Maku said the report focused mainly on how government “must do everything possible” to ensure that power projects are delivered in good time so that the sector can yield positive results in the lifetime of the administration.
He said the committee toured all the projects, including the gas power projects and the NIPP projects and recommended gas supply as one of the major issues to be addressed. He said both the ministers of power and petroleum resources informed council that the “gas master plan is already on ground and everything was being done to ensure that it is delivered, so that by the time power projects are completed, there will be gas to run them. The NIPP projects which will give this country over 4000MW electricity are at about 80 percent completion in the field.”
Another key recommendation by the committee was that attention should be paid to uncompleted dams all over the country, which could generate a lot of hydro-electric power for the country.
“It particularly noted the Dadinkowa dam, in Gombe State, which has the capacity to deliver 34MW of electricity; and there are several other dams stretching from Gombe, Osun, Kano and Katsina States that are also simply waiting for turbines to be installed to generate electricity,” Mr Maku said.
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