The Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe, has assured that the Kashimbila Dam located in Taraba State would be ready for commissioning in February 2015.
The dam is a buffer type designed to accommodate the poisonous gas and water that may come to Nigeria in case of breakdown of Lake Nyos in Cameroon and has the potential to generate 40 Megawatts of Hydro Power, 2000 hectares of land for irrigation together with tourism, aviation and transport potentials and would provide 60,000 cubic meters of water daily to 400,000 people.
Ochekpe, while inspecting the dam alongside Minister of Power Prof. Chinedu Nebo and the Minister of Tourism, Edem Duke, stated that the Federal Government would maximise opportunities such as potable water supply, agriculture, power, tourism, aviation, transport as well as trade and investment in the Kashimbila Multi-Purpose Dam for the benefit of the host communities and the county in general.
She noted that all the important sectors of the economy in the country would come to Kashimbila to see how they would contribute to maximise the use of the opportunities to be offered by the project.
Expressing her happiness with the level of work done, Ochekpe said: “We are happy with the level of work we see, as of 2010, the level of completion of this project was just 10 per cent, but now you can see that it has taken political determination of President Goodluck Jonathan to see that the project is executed to the final stage”
“The President himself had been driving this project and we are happy that today as we stand with you now, the project is 95 per cent completed. We have already set in motion the process that would lead to the commissioning of the project early February, 2015, so we are happy with what we have seen.
“We want to maximize every opportunity that is available here, next time we would come with our colleague from the agricultural sector because of the irrigation component. Staple processing zone would be set up around this neighbourhood and this would not only open up the rural areas but would provide opportunity for further improvement on our agricultural activities in Nigeria”
Speaking on the 40 megawatts Hydro power, the Minister of Power, Nebo, disclosed that the Federal Government has approved the contract for erection of transmission line for the evacuation of the 40 megawatts of electricity.
“The transmission infrastructure that would be put in place here would strengthen the entire Taraba State as well as Benue and Plateau states so that we can have more reliable and stable electricity in this part of the country”
On tourism, Duke said that the project team had already developed a master plan to integrate tourism into the project, adding that number of facilities that were on ground are enough to start the tourism element in the site.
He said his ministry was also working on how to get the local communities integrated in the tourism development of cultural industries where they would be doing craft and fabric that can be purchased by tourists that would be visiting the project.
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