The Interim Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Usman Mohammed, has disclosed that Manitoba Hydro International, the Canadian firm that was awarded the management contract for the CTN for four years, left the transmission company worse than it met it.
As a fallout to the privatisation of the successor generation and distribution companies of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), the Federal Government contracted Manitoba to manage the TCN for an initial period of three years.
The contract, which was first signed between the government and MHI in 2012 for a base period of three years, expired in 2015 and was subsequently renewed for another term of one year, before it eventually expired in 2016. Because of observed poor development, the contract was not renewed thereafter.
The TCN is the arm of the power value chain that transmits the quantum of electricity generated by power generation companies to distribution firms across the country.
He revealed that within the four years of Manitoba’s management of the transmission company, the firm witnessed a sharp rise in its top level workforce, in addition to a procurement process that was far from meeting standard practices.
In a presentation at the technical sessions at the National Council on Power, Mohammed said an investment appraisal study done by the company on the 11 distribution firms’ networks showed that the electricity distributors would need $4,262,816,005 worth of investment on feeders and injection substations to bring their capacity up to parity with that of the TCN.
According to him, the Discos would need $3,747,262,289 for feeders and $515,553,717 for injection stations.
There had been claims and counter claims between Discos and TCN on capabilities in evacuating generated powers and distributing same in the country.
