The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Isaiah Adekunle Salako, has described the newly established Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO) as the definitive institutional solution to eliminate recurring power failures in Nigeria’s healthcare facilities.
Salako stated this on Wednesday in Abuja during the official launch of RAMCO, emphasizing that reliable electricity is a non-negotiable prerequisite for clinical efficacy and patient safety.
He noted that intermittent power in healthcare settings directly threatens lives, as electricity is indispensable for operating theatres, intensive care units, diagnostic laboratories, blood banks, and vaccine cold-chain preservation systems.
“In hospitals, electricity powers operating theatres, intensive care units, laboratories, blood banks, vaccine refrigerators and the equipment that keeps mothers and children alive.”
“When electricity fails, the consequence goes beyond the loss of comfort, affecting clinical time, quality of care and, in some cases, lives,” the Minister said.
The minister explained that RAMCO directly addresses the historical vulnerabilities of clean energy deployments in the health sector.
He observed that over 30 percent of solar power systems previously installed in public health facilities collapsed within a few years of commissioning due to poor maintenance frameworks, absence of asset ownership, and lack of dedicated operational funding.
According to Salako, RAMCO’s end-to-end lifecycle model which incorporates continuous monitoring, predictive maintenance, asset optimization, and refinancing will ensure installed renewable infrastructure remains fully functional for decades.
He noted that the initiative directly underpins the Federal Government’s Nigeria Power for Health Initiative, which aims to provide reliable, uninterrupted electricity to at least 30 percent of the nation’s health facilities by the end of 2027.
“We must move away from a culture in which energy infrastructure is commissioned, celebrated and then subtly left without sustainable funding for its operation and maintenance,” Salako said, adding that through professional management, healthcare energy assets will become bankable enough to attract long-term private and climate financing to scale electrified healthcare delivery nationwide.
In his remarks, the Managing Director/CEO of the REA, Abba Aliyu, described RAMCO as the future of productive renewable energy asset utilization.
He explained that RAMCO will not burden the national treasury, but will instead unlock fresh private capital and revenue streams to ensure the long-term sustainability of off-grid infrastructure.
“RAMCO will reduce Nigeria’s dependence on government budgets, sovereign borrowing, and development finance to expand electricity access,” Aliyu said.
He added that RAMCO will enable capital deployed into mature renewable energy assets to be refinanced or recycled under robust commercial and regulatory frameworks, freeing up liquidity for new projects.
