The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has secured about
$1 billion from multilateral donors, including the government of Japan, to
expand and rehabilitate its facilities, it was learnt.
TCN’s Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive, Mr. Usman
Gur Mohammed, told The Nation that the Federal Government through the
Ministries of Power, Works and Housing and Finance, had secured significant
amount through that source to support improvement of the transmission arm of
the power sector.
Mohammed was in Lagos on the directive of Power, Works and
Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola to inspect one of the TCN’s transmission
towers that is being threatened by refuse dump and illegal oil refining and
burning. The TCN chief said such activities compromises the integrity of the
tower, adding that in the event of a problem, the maintenance team of the
company would not have access to the facility for repairs. Should the tower
collapse as a result of the compromise, the entire Apapa and environs would be
out of power supply, he added.
“Therefore, it is imperative that I came to see things,
discuss and collaborate with Lagos State Government to find solution to the
problem and permanently stop the nefarious activities going on under the
tower,” he added.
On tackling the funding problem facing the TCN, Mohammed
said: “Funding problem in the power sector is not restricted only to the
transmission, it extends to all other arms of the power industry. The liquidity
in the sector is so low because the collection efficiency is very low. It is
what the distribution companies collected that are distributed to all the other
arms including transmission.
“But since the coming of this government, it has been
putting money in transmission. Money that has been put by this government into
transmission has never been put into transmission in the history of Nigeria.
“We have also secured a lot of funding from multilateral
donors, backed by the Ministries of Power, Works and Housing and Finance, and
this is being channeled into transmission. To me, funding is not so much a big
issue to transmission because we have got the support of the government.
“Even though we are not getting enough from the market, the
government is supporting us through the multilateral donors that give us money
to finance our expansion and rehabilitation programme. So, I can assure you
everything is going on well and in the next one or two years, Nigerians will
see the difference.
“We have secured significant amount of money from the
multilateral donors but the utilisation of such funds depend on the outcome of
the tenders. Tenders under the multilateral donors’ fund have to be
internationally competitive and, by my estimate, we have secured about $1
billion. We have existing projects that have not been doing well, which have
been resuscitated.”
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