Aba IPP comes on stream 20 years after conception
The Aba Integrated Power Project, owned by the Geometric Power Group, finally came on stream on Monday, 20 years after it was conceived by its CEO Barth Nnaji.
The power plant, located at Osisioma, near Aba, was inaugurated by President Bola Tinubu amidst wild jubilation by the Aba business community and residents.
Mr Nnaji said the plant was conceived in March 2004 as “a child of necessity by the desire to increase power supply nationwide.”
He said the project was the outcome of a meeting between Aba industrialists, Ariaria International Market Traders, along with the then-president of the World Bank, James Wolfenson, and the then-finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, now director-general of the World Trade Organisation.
He said the stakeholders felt the best way to give Aba metropolis a reliable power supply was to build an autonomous power project, with excess power supplied to the national grid.
He said the facility was licensed to produce 188 megawatts of electricity but was starting with 141 megawatts from three turbines.
The plant can generate and distribute power within the Aba Ring-Fenced Area (ARFA), which comprises nine of the 17 LGA.
The facility comprises two companies – Geometric Power Aba Limited, the power generation arm, and Aba Power Limited Electric, its power distribution arm.
From conception to finish, Mr Nnaji said the project gulped about $800 million.
He said it suffered hitches after GPAL acquired ARFA and soon lost it to Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) due to a wrong privatisation process in 2013.
He said the resultant crisis compelled Geometric Power Group to seek redress in Court for nine years until former President Muhammadu Buhari, through ex-power minister Babatunde Fashola, resolved the dispute in 2016.
After that, Mr Nnaji said the company “went to work assiduously to pay off huge debts EEDC claimed GPAL owed it to the tune of $26 million to reclaim the ARFA.”
He said the company also sent abroad its turbines not used for one day for refurbishment and perfected gas supply arrangements to power its existing three turbines.
(NAN)
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