Nigeria Nigeria power saga

Discos withholding transmission 

expansion funds – TCN

Power distribution companies are withholding money meant for the expansion of Nigeria’s electricity transmission network, the Transmission Company of Nigeria has said. According to the TCN, the poor remittance from the Discos has made the country’s transmission company the most vulnerable arm of the power value chain in Nigeria.

The Managing Director, TCN, Usman-Gur Mohammed, said, “If you look at the power sector, the TCN is the most vulnerable organisation. Why did I say that? I say that because the Discos are collecting our money and they keep all they want to keep and give the sector whatever they like. Power generation companies are covered by what they call payment assurance from the Federal Government which is about N701bn. The only arm of the sector that is not taken care of is the TCN and that is why we are the least paid in the industry.”

Mohammed added, “So we had to go to multilateral donors like the World Bank to raise money for the expansion of the network. But you know you can’t use this money for operation. You cannot go to the World Bank and get money for running your system. The money you can get is for the expansion of your network, for hard investments. They can’t give you money for running your operations. So this is the situation.”