Furthermore, Mohammed disclosed that $65 million had been budgeted to secure the much needed Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Electricity Management Systems (EMS)
Usman Mohammed, Managing Director of The transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), says 145 containers are still awaiting clearance from ports across the country. Speaking at a workshop for reporters, he disclosed that 655 have been dispatched to their project site, 75 are awaiting clarance and 7 are awaiting clearance and another 70 are with the Nigerian Customs Service.
He revealed that TCN had partnered with multilateral donor agencies to raise $1.75 billion for four years to execute its Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP). The World bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and French Development Agency are some of the agencies that have teamed up to secure the needed funding. Mohammed said TCN was abloe to muster this level of support, because it cleaned up its corporate governance act:
“In the last one year, we have been able to deliver a 20-year least-cost transmission plan, present to NERC a generation adequacy report which is part of the requirement of the function of system operation, and we have been able to also audit TCN from 2010 to 2016 and now working to deliver the 2017 audit,” he also said the bank had been able to trim down its bloated management cadre from 46 general managers to 16 and less than 50 assistant general managers; including the restructuring of its procurement systems to accommodate only competent firms in its contract.
Furthermore, Mohammed disclosed that $65 million had been budgeted to secure the much needed Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Electricity Management Systems (EMS):
“The SCADA is a digital system to control the grid. Most of the time we use manual processes to control the grid, and if somebody does anything in the grid that is supposed to be seen, sometimes it cannot be seen because there is no SCADA, so the SCADA is like a mirror that sees everybody on the grid and anybody that does anything that affects the grid will be seen and punished according to the grid code.
“Its main purpose is to ensure that we have a grid that is functioning properly, and become stable and modern,” he stated.
The TCN boss also added that the company had secured $1.57 billion:
“I wish to tell you that the TREP has so far been able to raise $1.57 billion from multilateral and bilateral donors. And, this is coming from the World Bank, AfDB, JICA, and French Development Agency.”