Federal Government plans to spend a total of N17.5billion on the National Rural Electrification Agency in the 2019 fiscal year, the details of the 2019 budget proposal, have said.
President Muhammadu Buahri had in December, 2018, presented a budget proposal of N8.83 trillion for the 2019 fiscal year to the joint session of the National Assembly.
In the proposed budget, the sum of N1.02bn was proposed for the Mambilla hydro power project; and N400million for the construction of 215MW LPFO/Gas Power station in Kaduna.
Similarly, the sum of N338.5million is earmarked for the Kashimbilla transmission, while the fast power programme accelerated gas and solar power generation is expected to gulp the sum of N398m in the 2019 fiscal year.
However, the breakdown of the funds allocated to the agencies under the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing (power sector), reveals that the National Rural Electrification Agency got the highest allocation of N17,552,550,738, while the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) got the least budgetary provision of N580,670,126.
Accordingly, the National Rural Electrification Agency is expected to expend the proposed fund on 42 rural electrification projects in all the 36 states of the federation including the Federal capital territory.
Similarly, the part of the allocated funds would be used to service loans, over head and total recurrent expenses.
Also, the sum of N346,166,726,658 was allocated to the ministry of Power, Works and Housing (Power sector, while the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) Hqtrs, and National Power Training Institute, got N3,265,776,163, and 1,858,672,850 respectively.
In the budget proposal, the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Limited is expected to spend N1,902,785,505, while the Transmission Company Of Nigeria (TCN) and Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc., would spend the sum of N13,175,263,534, and N9,301,889,919 respectively.
