AYODELE OLUBUSE

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 disclosed 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.”