The European Union (EU) and the Enugu State Government have committed to exploring potential partnership areas across the power and infrastructure sectors to drive economic growth and development in the state.
This was disclosed by the Head of Cooperation at the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Massimo De Luca, Tuesday, when he paid a working visit to the governor of Enugu State, Dr Peter Mbah, at Government House, Enugu.
Mr. De Luca, who underscored the strategic place of Enugu State to the EU, added that the state had since emerged as a key partner in several areas, particularly in the power sector where projects, such as solar-to-health, small hydro-power generation that will provide uninterrupted power supply for industrial clusters were being initiated.
“A specific focus, which has emerged over the last couple of years is the renewable energy, and Enugu is one of the selected number of states that are partnering with us on a number of renewable energy initiatives. One of them is solar-to-health.
“We are working for the electrification of primary health centres in the state, and the model we are adopting is one that will ensure sustainability,” he added.
While sharing their blueprint for the development of infrastructure, the EU chief lamented that some of their projects in the past had been allowed to waste due to poor maintenance culture and lack of interest in most of the places they were initiated.
He, however, underscored the importance of engaging local authorities in the area of security in order to ensure that initiated projects penetrate those at the rural and grassroots.
“This time, we are involving the local authorities fully in the primary health sector, and even the private sector, so that infrastructure, which we will deploy in partnership with the state authority, will be taken over by a management structure that ensures a long-term sustainability of the infrastructure. That also means that the solar installations that we are building should not only serve the health centres, but also the eco-system,” he said.
He expressed hopes that the partnership would yield projects that will serve as opportunity for primary healthcare system to become efficient, sustainable and also provide better services to the citizens.
“We are also looking at different types of renewable energy operations, and more of them to be connected to agriculture. It is a small hydro which is a technology where European Union is particularly advanced, and can be deployed without upsetting the environment; and that can contribute to the electrification of the area with its own hydro-generation plants,” De Luca further stated.
On his part, Governor Peter Mbah indicated the state’s strong interest in forging development partnership with the EU, stressing that some of its initiatives aligned with the administration’s aims, objectives and vision of not only developing the state exponentially but also taking deliberate steps in eradicating poverty.
“Our vision is to eradicate poverty – to achieve a zero percent rate in our poverty headcount. We have in pursuit of that objective, invested hugely in our social sector; building 260 smart schools, 260 Type-2 primary healthcare centres.
“We can see a major alignment when you talk of investment because beyond eradicating poverty in our state, we have the vision to grow our economy exponentially, and we see that coming from outside investment – private sector investments from multi-lateral and bi-lateral relationships.
“Given our private sector backgrounds, we know how we can structure investment in a manner that is a win – win for all parties; whether with the private sector or the EU investments.
“We are also interested in other areas that you have mentioned. Grassroots for us is particularly of interest because we believe that we cannot grow at the expense of our downtrodden; those ones in the rural areas.
“If you look at our budget tagline, you will get things like exponential growth and inclusive prosperity. This means that you have to grow even the weakest among us. So, we are investing hugely in basic amenities, expanding economic opportunities to those in the rural areas,” he said.
Mbah, who further called for the strengthening of the existing relationship to expand new areas of interests in the renewable energy source that will include solar-for-health and solar-for-education that will power the smart screens, ICT centres, robotics and artificial intelligence laboratories in the smart green schools across the 260 electoral wards in the state.
