The Ministry of Electricity and Energy has not yet drawn down all donor funds estimated at more than $ 1 billion allocated before and during the 2006 London Donor Conference for the power sector in Yemen, an official who asked not to be named told the News Yemen on Thursday.
There were about $ 808 million funds given at the conference and $ 212 million before the conference for the electrical sector in the country.
The ministry took only $ 13.5 million out of $ 808 million given at the conference, the official said.
Owing to this and other reasons including the slowness in finalizing the selection of the cadre for the project executive units and preparing studies on and documents of the fifth power project according to the requirements of the financier as well as the slowness in announcing the tender for the project after an agreement for it was signed, the execution of new electrical projects has not started yet, added the official.
There are other reasons for the delay in commencing the new projects including the problem which took place during opening the tender for the gas-fired power plant, Marib 2, and the prolonged process of the bid; the ministry's ignorance of the measures of donors; the slowness in identifying the priorities for the project of power discharge from the Marib stations; not signing an agreement with the Saudi Development Fund for contributing to financing the power lines project; and not activating the agreement singed with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development for contributing to financing the project, the official said.
Yemen produces 650 megawatts of power and purchases about 200 megawatts from international companies to address daily outages across the country.