African Development Bank (AfDB) has said with about 620 million people are lacking electricity in Nigeria and other African countries and because of this, $30 and $40 billion may have been incurred as costs on a yearly basis.
The bank, which disclosed this in its Financial Presentation and Operational Analysis for 2015 at its just-concluded 50th Annual Meetings also added that a total of $126 million had been offered as special relief for humanitarian causes in the continent.
The presentation, which was jointly made by the AfDB Vice President, Finance, Charles Boamah, and Officer-in-Charge, Treasury Department of the bank, Hassatou N’sele revealed that the bank has been intervening in many African countries so as to relieve the electricity situation.
The bank said “half of Africa’s infrastructure needs are in electric power. Majority of countries are facing regular power outages at an economic cost of one per cent to two per cent of GDP per annum.”
Trade between African countries is estimated at 12 per cent because the micro markets in the 54 African countries are so fragmented that the idea of developing economies of scale in this countries is far-fetched.
The bank recorded that many African countries has been on a growth path in the past decade with West and East Africa registering the highest growth rates at 6 and 7.1 per cent, respectively, in 2014