Oilserv Group boss, Okwuosa lists 3 conditions for energy sector boom
Leading oil and gas indigenous investor and chairman, Oilserv Group, Dr. Emeka Okwuosa, has come up with three strategic roadmaps that will tame breaches in the steady production and distributions of electricity in Nigeria.
The Oilserv boss delivered lecture on, ‘Infrastructural Development: A Key to Economic Growth and Development in Nigeria,’ at the 48th Convocation Ceremony of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, recently.
Explaining more in the course of the presentation, he said “Optimising the existing installed capacity available for generation; restoring lost gas supply through the gas flare commercialisation programme; and elimination of gas infrastructure vandalism are germane to stable power supply in the country”.
He said if the three roadmaps are implemented, the success level will push up private sector investments which will further drive the completion of major gas infrastructure lines to plants and main trunk lines to facilitate gas supply for power generation; encouragement small scale projects; and reaching final closure for the implementation of the solar plants power sharing agreements.
Continuing, he argued that “aside the three action plans, there is also great need for the enthronement of a concise legal and commercial framework for investment in the power sector, introduction of good financing strategy for capital market and banking that support the sector remained critical”.
According to him, “Infrastructure in more practical terms is regarded as basic essential services put in place by practitioners to enable development to occur.
“It is imperative that economic growth and development of Nigeria can be accelerated and facilitated by the provision of an articulated infrastructure framework that will contribute to improving the quality of life by creating amenities, providing consumption goods in the areas of energy, transport, communication services and in all other facets of macroeconomic stability.”
Dr Okwuosa decried that despite the huge capital resources, both natural and human at the country’s disposal, “we as a people and a country have performed so abysmally in the provision of infrastructural development essential for the projection of proportionately good economic growth.
“The massive underinvestment in infrastructural development has been the result or bane to achieving our vision of becoming a top 20 economy by the Year 2020. In reality, the present infrastructural deficit in Nigeria will continue to adversely impact on its economic growth.”
“The variance of this stability could only be achieved by undertaking fiscal stimulus measures that ensure monetary stability by improving our external balance of trade with particular focus on the key sectors that drive and enable economic growth,” he stressed.
The indigenous oil and gas investor therefore advised both the federal and state government to focus more on achieving macroeconomic stability and economic diversification with strong attention to knowledge economy.
