Nigeria will receive a $300 million loan from the World Bank to help develop its dilapidated power sector, a major hinderance to economic growth in Africa’s most populous nation, a government official said on Wednesday.
Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council gave President Umaru Yar’Adua the go-ahead to accept the loan from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) for its electricity and gas improvement projects.
“The credit is to be utilized for the funding of critical investments in the power sector, particularly to strengthen electricity transmission and distribution,” said Information Minister Dora Akunyili.
The world’s eighth largest oil exporter has spent billions of dollars over the past decade to resolve its power crisis, but residents have seen little improvement.
Most Nigerians go without main electricity for weeks, plunging neighbourhoods without private generators into darkness every night and heightening frustration among its 140 million people.
Nigeria last month disbursed $2 billion from its windfall oil savings as part of an economic stimulus package. The federal government said it would use some of the funds to improve its shambolic power sector.
Nov122009