TCN to do more projects with N600bn loans

The Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, has said the company has been reformed to execute huge power projects with capacity to offset the $1.66 billion (about N600.4 billion) loans it is getting from multilateral donor agencies.

Mr. Mohammed who disclosed this on Friday at a TCN and donor stakeholders meeting in Abuja, said the company was driving itself to self-sustainability, adding that the Distribution Companies (DisCos) owed TCN N220bn for service charges, and that with more earnings through the tariff in the electricity market, the firm was viable.

He said, “DisCos owe us N270bn cumulatively as uncollected debts. We can finance our operation and so all the loans we are taking, we are now signing agreements with the Federal Ministry of Finance agreeing that we are going to pay the loans by ourselves.”

Analysis of the $1.661bn loans from five agencies shows that the World Bank is the highest donor with $486m for transmission access project, and $27m for the North Core project. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has $410m for transmission expansion projects, the French Development Agency (AFD) and the European Union (EU) gave $330m for the northern corridor transmission project.

While the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JICA) pegged 238m for Lagos/Ogun transmission project, AFD gave another N170m for the Abuja transmission ring scheme.

The Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Power, Engr. Louis Edozien, said, “We want to hear from you what you will be doing to improve transmission, and of course, help us with suggestions on what we can do with distribution because TCN has done much on transmission.”

An energy specialist from the World Bank, Mr. Mohammed Wakil, said, “We recently closed a $300m dollar project in 2018 and we have also begun a new project of $486m, and it is progressing quite well.”