Following the persistent electricity grid collapse, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP presidential candidate who is also the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has proposed a solution that could bring a lasting solution to the power outage. Atiku postulated that innovative financing of infrastructure in the power sector will go a long way in addressing the problem. According to him, the financing would involve the facilitation of a review of both the financial, legal, and regulatory environment that could promote private investment in the power sector as a reform policy direction.
On his official Facebook handle, the former vice president wrote, “I am reliably informed that there was a total National Grid Collapse at precisely 12:23 pm today. This is one collapse too many. It is the 6th time this is happening this year alone.
“Due to the priority that I place on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, I am proposing innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.
Atiku revealed that if given the opportunity, “I’ll promote the incentivization, with tax breaks, a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to primarily mobilize domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy.
He added, “The IDF will have an initial investment capacity of approximately US$20 billion. In addition, I’ll cause the creation of an Infrastructure Development Credit Guarantee Agency to complement the operation of the IDF by de-risking investments in infrastructure to build investor confidence in taking risks and investing capital.”
