Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
All is now set for the building of a 100 megawatts power plant, 20km transmission line and 20km gas line at Ugbenu in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State by Anambra Gas Fired IPP Company Limited (AGFIP).
Consequently, the final stage of the environmental impact assessment, which was the reason for the panel review meeting, has been held in Awka with the stakeholders especially the affected communities expressing optimism for the quick realisation of the project. Addressing the host and affected communities, both the representatives of the Minister of Environment, Mr. Abbas Suleiman, and the Panel Chairman, Y. A. Moru, assured the people that the review was to ensure that all that were necessary and needed to be done before the project takes off were properly done so that no party would be shortchanged. They asked the people to feel free to point out anything that would be an impediment to the execution of the project.
Speaking to Daily Sun during meeting, the Chairman of AGFIP, Shai Levi, said that apart from power, the people would be given training to become technicians and engineers.
He said, “the project is for establishing a power plant of 100mw. We are going to start around March hoping to finish the project around March 2020. This project is producing power from gas, local gas, so we will utilise the gas that is already here. The project is maintained with gas overtime so we are going to produce power for decades and it will be done overtime.
“Power is the most important benefit for the communities. We are going to use resources but also we are going to take people for work and give them the ability not only to do simple work, we are going to train them, make them technicians, make them engineers.”