President Akufo-Addo visits Renewable Energy and Industrial Maintenance Center in Cape Verde

President Akufo-Addo on Saturday, May 19, visited the Centre for Renewable Energy and Industrial Maintenance (CERMI).

CERMI was established to build capacities on the different technologies of renewable energy such as solar, photovoltaic and wind.

By the year 2020, Cape Verde aims at achieving a 100% penetration rate of renewable energy in use in all parts of the country.

The ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, whose Executive Director is Mahama Kappiah, a Ghanaian, is working closely with CERMI to this end.

President Akufo-Addo was also taken on a tour of Cape Verde’s National Data Centre (NOSi), which was established in August 2015.

The Centre aims at providing services in areas such as finance, distance higher education, research and development of software, and other solutions in the field of new technologies.

According to Jorge Lopes, Coordinator of NOSi, who took President Akufo-Addo round the center, “this infrastructure allows us to store and process the data safely.



From this centre, Cape Verde can offer storage services and data processing, software development, "hosting" websites, etc., to institutions, national and international, amongst others.”

President Akufo-Addo was also taken to Cidade Velha, the Portuguese word for "old city". A former capital of Cape Verde, it is the oldest settlement in Cape Verde, and is currently the seat of the Ribeira Grande de Santiago municipality.



The “old city” was the first European colonial settlement in the tropics. Some of the planned original design of the site is still intact, including a royal fortress, two towering churches and a 16th century town square.

Today, Cidade Velha is an Atlantic shipping stop and center for Creole culture. The city became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.