TheCable

Usman Mohammed, chief executive officer of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), says $1.57bn has been raised to build critical infrastructures across the country.

Mohammed disclosed this at a power roundtable organised by Sahara Power in Lagos.

According to THISDAY, he said the $1.57 billion would be deployed to build transmission lines and substations to stabilise the national grid.

He said $408 million from the $1.57 billion was provided by the World Bank to increase the transmission capacity through brownfield projects.

Mohammed said the company could not execute projects through contractor financing because it receives less than 40 percent of its revenue from the Nigerian electricity market.

He said the company is working on more than 90ongoing projects which consist the Abuja wheeling scheme, where five additional substations would gulp $170 million.

Addressing the controversy over the federal government’s ownership of TCN, he argued that other successful grids around the world are similarly government-owned.

“I also want to tell you that ownership of TCN is not actually the issue. There are grids owned by government and they are doing well. Power grid of India is owned by the government and they can raise loan from London Stock Exchange,” he said.

“The biggest money given to government parastatal by the African Development Bank was given to Eskom and Eskom is owned by South African government. Power grid of Brazil is still owned by the government. I think government ownership is not the issue. The issue is how to make the organization work.”