US, Discos sign $9m pact towards 30,000mw electricity target   

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Power Africa Transactions Reforms Programme, on Monday signed an agreement to launch a two-year activity of providing management consultation to three electricity distribution companies (Discos) in Nigeria.

The $9 million effort is intended to scale up the US government’s energy investment in Nigeria and increase available generation and connections, with a specific goal of adding 30,000mw and 60 million connections in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.

Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, who was represented by Lanre Akinsola, his special adviser on policy and legal matters, described the memorandum of understanding signed as a major step in the right direction.

James Entwistle, the US ambassador to Nigeria, and Michael Harvey, USAID country director, witnessed the event, which also had in attendance the managing directors of the Abuja, Benin, and Eko Discos.

“The two-year agreement will provide management consultation to three Nigerian distribution companies. The agreement will also advance major infrastructure investment and strengthen system in the distribution companies, as we believe that distribution companies are the starting point for improving the performance of generation companies,” said the US ambassador.

According to Abimbola Odubiyi, director of stakeholder and regulatory affairs, at Abuja Disco, Tetra Tech, one of our technical advisers that is coming on board to help us in some aspects of our distribution activities, specifically, are going to look into the areas of business process re-engineering and how we organise ourselves to do things better and to make us more efficient in the services we give to our customers.

 “If you look at the pedigree and experience, they have worked in similar situations across the world and they have been very successful; they have transformed the power company in the Republic of Georgia, they worked in Kosovo, they have worked in Iraq, they have worked in Afghanistan, they have worked in Egypt, they have worked in Jordan too, so all these tough areas they have worked in and they have very good testimony to give on that.”