Kaduna gets additional €10m EU/ECOWAS grant for solar energy – Punch Newspapers

Godwin Isenyo, Kaduna

The Kaduna State government said it had secured an additional €10m grant from the European Union and the Economic Community of West African States to boost its solar energy intervention in the state.

A Senior Special Assistant to Governor Nasir el-Rufai on Energy, Ms. Dolapo Popoola, made the disclosure in Kaduna on Thursday.

At the signing of a MoU by the state and the EU/UK DFID on solar energy in the state, Popoola said the state had secured the grant from the EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS.

She said, “This will see the programme expanded to general hospitals in rural areas, public secondary schools, water treatment facilities and more primary health care facilities to improve health care delivery, education and availability of water in rural communities.”

The state government on Thursday also signed a maintenance contract for its 1.7 megawatt solar project to expand the programme to hospitals, schools and water facilities in partnership with EU/UK DFID.

In 2016, the state government, as part of its strategic and energy development agenda, began the installation of 1.7MW of solar systems in primary health care centres across the 23 local government areas of the state.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, noted that 34 primary health care centres in 21 local government areas had been equipped with solar systems.

She said, “At its initiation, this project was the first of its kind in Northern Nigeria to ensure that the selected health care centres, serving over 180,000 patients annually, can be supplied all the power they need to provide quality health care round the clock in an environmentally friendly manner.

“On average, almost 6,000 babies are delivered every year across these 34 primary health care centres – 44 per cent at night.”

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