Contrary to general belief that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is swimming in funds, the Managing Director, Usman-Gur Mohammed, has revealed that the company is only surviving and relying on grants and loans from multilateral donors to expand its network.
In an interview, he disclosed that “If you look at the power sector, the TCN is the most vulnerable organization,” noting that “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.”
Continuing, Mohammed averred that “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,” Usman-Gur Mohammed, Managing Director of TCN explained.
