Coal for electricity: Kemi Adeosun Blasts World Bank, IMF

Today, the FG lashed out at Western countries and multilateral development institutions for hampering her efforts to provide stable electricity supply to Nigerians, The Nation reports.

Speaking at a panel discussion at the on-going IMF/ World Bank meeting in Washington DC, finance minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun called the multilateral institutions and their western backers hypocrites for denying Nigeria and other African countries to use coal to generate electricity.

Her words: “I'm going to point fingers at multilateral institutions and the west, a good example is the coal-fired power plant, we in Nigeria have coal but we have power problem, yet we’ve been blocked because it is not green.

There is some hypocrisy because we have the entire western industrialization built on coal energy, that is the competitive advantage that they have been using, now Africa wants to use coal and suddenly they are saying oh! You have to use solar and the wind (renewable energy) which are the most expensive, after polluting the environment for hundreds of years and now that Africa wants to use coal they deny us.”

She agreed that Africa needs to make investment in infrastructure but the playing field must be leveled “we need policy consistency to attract bankable projects, we also need macroeconomic stability, but if you want to phase out coal, no problem but those who started it should lead, those who want us to stop using dirty fuel should stop it first before telling us not to use it.

By telling us not to use coal they are pushing us into the destructive cycle of underdevelopment, while you have the competitive advantages, you tie our hands behind us” she said.

Adeosun went ahead to state categorically that she “would sign up to a global proposal that is fair, with a morally viable sequence that demands that the rich countries have to close their coal fields first before other countries have to do anything.”

Prof. Paul Collier of the University of Oxford who agreed with the finance minister called that “an ethical commitment from an African minister.” Idolized by her people.