FG to establish development finance institution – Jonathan

“We are aware that inadequate infrastructure increases the cost of production by an estimated 30 per cent, making Nigerian goods quite under-competitive and we need to improve on that.

“The Federal Government believes that stable power supply is the bedrock of our industrial development and economic progress.

“It will not only reduce the cost of manufacturing and services significantly, it will also engender investments and create jobs.

“With these benefits in mind we are vigorously implementing the power sector reform programme,” he said.

Jonathan stated that in spite of the initial challenges associated with the power reform programme, some of the successor companies to the unbundled Power Holding Company of Nigeria were currently doing well.

He lauded the CBN for collaborating with the Ministries of Power and Petroleum Resources, as well as the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, to address the funding issues related to gas supply.

“The collaboration is expected to boost gas supply which will increase the country’s power generation capacity to 5,000 megawatts within the next few months,” he said.

NAN reports that besides limited access to finance, MSMEs in the country are also confronted with poor infrastructure, especially power, among other challenges.

Jonathan later presented cheques of N500 million to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta and N260 million to his Akwa Ibom counterpart, Governor Godswill Akpabio, as their states’ share of the fund.

The representatives of LAPO Micro-Finance Bank and Grassroots Micro-Finance also received cheques of N100 million and N9.9 million respectively from the President.