Don't Miss

Jonathan to inaugurate 40MW Kashimbila Dam in February

By BusinessNews Staff on December 25, 2014

President Goodluck Jonathan will inaugurate the 40 megawatts Kashimbila multipurpose dam in February next year, the Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe, has said.

According to her, the Federal Government will maximise opportunities such as potable water supply, agriculture, power, tourism, aviation, transport as well as trade and investment in the Kashimbila dam for the benefit of the host communities and the country in general.

Ochekpe said these when she and her counterparts in the ministries of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo; Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Mr. Edem Duke; and State for Power, Mr. Muhammed Wakil, inspected the dam in Taraba State.

The minister, in a statement made available by her ministry on Tuesday, said the dam was a buffer designed to accommodate the poisonous gas and water that might come to Nigeria in case of the breakdown of the Lake Nyos in Cameroon.

She noted that as of the present, the dam was generating 40MW of hydro power, 2,000 hectares of land for irrigation, and had potential for tourism, aviation and transportation, and would provide 60,000 cubic metres of water daily to 400,000 people.

Ochekpe was quoted as saying, “We are here at Kashimbila with three of my colleagues and we are happy with the level of work that we see. As of 2010, the level of completion of this project was just 10 per cent; but now, you can see that the project is at its final stage.

“The President has been driving this project and we are happy that today, the project is 95 per cent completed. We have already set in motion the process that will lead to the inauguration of the project in early February 2015.

“We want to maximise every opportunity that is available here. Next time we will come with our colleague from agriculture because of the irrigation component. Staple processing zone will be set up around this neighbourhood and this will not only open up the rural areas but will provide opportunities for further improvement in agriculture.”

Nebo, on his part, said the Federal Government had approved the contract for the erection of transmission lines that would evacuate the electricity generated from the dam.

“The transmission infrastructure that will be put in place here will strengthen the entire Taraba up to Benue and Plateau states so that we can have more reliable and stable electricity in these parts of the country,” he said.

Duke, in his address, said a team in his ministry had already developed a master plan to integrate tourism into the project, adding that the facilities on the ground at the dam were enough to make the site a tourist attraction.

[Punch]

headline