11 DisCos need N1.5trn to match transmission capacity

The Interim Managing Director (IMD) of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr Usman Gur Mohammed has said 11 Distribution Companies (Discos) would need $4.2 billion (about N1.509trn) investments on feeders and injection substations to bring their capacity to measure with that of transmission.

Mohammed disclosed this in a presentation at one of the technical sessions during National Council on Power (NACOP) in Jos last week. He noted that an investment appraisal study done by the TCN on the DisCos’ networks revealed the investment gap.

In a breakdown, he said $3.7bn (N1.330trn) would be required to upgrade the feeders, and another $515.5 million (N185.142bn) for the distribution injection stations.

He also said the Canadian firm, Manitoba Hydro International (MHI) that ran its management contract with the federal government on TCN failed to pull it out of inefficiencies.

The contract which was first signed between the government and MHI in 2012 for three years, expired in 2015 and was subsequently renewed for one year before it eventually expired in 2016, and not renewed.

But speaking on his experience since taking over the TCN, Mohammed who was recruited from the African Development Bank (AfDB), said: “Three of the key findings of the change management consulting we did for TCN in 2005 were that TCN had too many non-technical staff, TCN has aging workforce at that time, and TCN was top heavy - it has too many general managers vis-à-vis the working the staff.”

He said his management is reversing it by reducing the general managers from 46 to 25, and 134 assistant general managers to below 50.