By Jennifer Ugwueke
Over two thousand hectares of land with titled documents have been given by 24 States for the Buhari administration’s Social Housing programme, while 17 States have indicated interest to participate in the Solar Power programme, both important elements of the ongoing Economic Sustainability Plan.
Equally, an agreement has now been reached with at least one major cement manufacturer in the Country to sell at significantly discounted prices as low as N2600 per bag of cement for the social housing projects. This was after a meeting the vice President held with three major cement manufacturers in the Country namely Dangote Cement, Bua Cement and Lafarge Cement manufacturers.
These were some of the highlights emerging from a review meeting on the Economic Sustainability Plan implementation presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa over the weekend.
Commenting on the implementation of components of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), Mr Osinbajo said the Buhari administration will continue to focus on creating more jobs while improving access to power and affordable housing for the majority of Nigerians.
Highlighting the progress so far, the vice President assured that the federal Government will ramp up efforts so more Nigerians have access to electricity and affordable housing.
According to the presentation made by the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Ahmad Salihijo, the Solar Power Naija team has had engagements with the six States who have identified private sector developers. The team has also selected Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Kano as pilot States for the State-guaranteed transaction model for the solar power programme.
He explained that REA is currently tracking transactions worth N55 billion potentially contributing the first two million connections in Nigeria and providing thousands of jobs.
For instance, the programme is currently tracking four transactions in the commercial bank upstream channel contributing 3,500 jobs and 100,000 connections.
The MD added that nine participants have submitted applications for over N4 billion of the N20 billion allocated with three companies close to receiving disbursements.