23 September 2013, ABUJA — The new private sector investors who bought the electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos, are to inject a total of $1.8 billion into the operations of the companies.
The Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Mr. Benjamin Ezra Dikki disclosed this at a presentation on the future of the industry in Abuja.
A statement issued by the spokesman, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe quoted Mr. Dikki as explaining that the funds injection would be for “metering, expansion, connection of new consumers, safety, health and environmental issues.”
The BPE boss also explained that the decision of the Federal Government to engage Manitoba Hydro International, MHI, as management contractors for the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, was to place TCN on the path of best practice, reliability and self sustenance to ensure predictability and security of the transmission system.
He said that a well-managed TCN was critical to the success of the multi-billion Naira National Integrated Power Project, NIPP, which is expected to give the nation’s electricity power supply a quantum leap in the next few years.
He added that the management contractors “would bring in invaluable experience on the sector development, provide clear targets and incentives, build capacity of TCN staff to prepare them for future roles, post_management contract and completion of the unbundling and independent operation of the system and market operator functions into an independent system operator, thus allowing the entities to concentrate on their core functions”.
He disclosed that the contract which was in the second year of the contract, had so far delivered 18 milestone reports on different facets of how TCN would be transformed.
On the implications of the NIPP on the power transaction, Dikki said the transaction had shown that there was a strong demand from private sector to participate in the generation and distribution sectors of the electricity industry.
*Emma Ujah, Vanguard
