Stable power from June, says Jonathan

\President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday in Islamabad, Pakistan assured Nigerians of stable supply electricity in major cities by the end of second quarters of next year.

Jonathan spoke at an interactive session with the Nigerian community in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The event hosted by the Nigerian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Dauda Danladi was part of the activities on the sidelines of the Summit of Eight Developing Nations (D-8) being attended by the President.

Responding to questions raised by some of the guests, the President said his administration had overcome the challenges of power generation to a very large extent.

He identified the major challenge to be that of evacuation of the generated electricity due to poor infrastructure.

“Presently, we are generating more than what our transmission capability can evacuate.

“We have over 1000 megawatts of power that we cannot evacuate because of the transmission infrastructure that have been weak over the years and it was very recently that government started the intervention.

“But, we have projects that are going on, so before the end of the second quarter, almost middle of next year, most of these projects would have been inaugurated and we will be evacuating power generated.

“At that time, quite a number of cities will begin to have 24 hour of light.

“When we get to that point you will see that small scale enterprises will begin to make returns and that is the way we can create jobs,’’ he said.

The President told the gathering that his administration had also made improvements on other sectors like roads, aviation, Agriculture and other infrastructure.