At a time the country is battling to resolve the puzzle of steady power supply, facts have emerged that power transmission projects worth about N6bn have remained stalled in the past few years due to lack of government funding.
Power generation and distribution companies were privatised in November 2013, but the transmission segment of the value chain was left in the hands of the government.
The Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Dr. Atiku Abubakar, said at a forum held by Eko Electricity Distribution Company Plc in Lagos, with members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Power in attendance that since 2002, a total of 130 projects across the country are yet to be completed.
He said “In the TCN, we have over 130 big projects, from 330KV to 132KV to associated substations, from 2002. But they have not been completed due to lack of funding from government. For three years’ budgets now, nothing has been allocated for the projects.
“Year in year out, we made provisions for the projects in the budget, but they were removed for reasons we don’t know. In 2015, the power sector had only N1bn allocation; and these projects are worth N5bn to N6bn. They are over 60 to 70 per cent completed; we have all the materials on the ground.
Whereas Abubakar explained that contractors could not continue the project because payment had not been made by the government, he however expressed hope that by next year, considering the budget, “we will be able to fund the projects so that they will be completed within one year or one and a half years.”
