The Chairman of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), Mr. Tony Elumelu has restated the commitment of his  pan-African proprietary investment company to invest $2.5 billion to the power sector.
Speaking at the weekend after he was handed over the Ughelli Power Plant in Delta State, which was acquired by Transcorp, Elumelu
said the acquisition of the plant at a cost of $300million was part of the $2.5billion investment in the power sector.
“When President Obama visited Africa recently, we made a commitment. We made a commitment that we will invest $2.5billion in the power sector. We are going to start that investment in Ughelli Power Plant. We have actually started because we invested $300million to buy this plant, which is close to about N50billion. But that is just the beginning. We want to install new turbines here. We want to refurbish the existing turbines. We want to acquire other plants so that we will help our country improve electricity generation,” he explained.
Elumelu said Transcorp’s target was to raise Ughelli Plant’s current generating capacity of 330megawatts to 1,500mw, adding that this target would require the cooperation of everyone  to be attained.
The $2.5billion investment will be made under  Power Africa, an initiative of Elumelu’s Heirs Holdings.
Power Africa is a multi-stakeholder partnership between the United States,  Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Ethiopia, and the private sector in Africa, with the shared objective of accelerating investment in Africa’s power sector over the next five years.
The initiative was launched in South Africa during Obama’s Town Hall meeting at the University of Cape Town.
Transcorp acquired the Ughelli power plant, one of the generating plants unbundled from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).