03 September 2013, Abuja – The federal government’s funding source for expansion and upgrade of Nigeria’s weak electricity transmission network has continued to enlarge with its plan to take in a $150 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank, IDB.
The $150 million loan package is lined up as part of possible funding sources for the activities of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, in its 2015 capital projects mix.
A blueprint of TCN’s planned expansion, which was recently presented by its Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Don Priestman, at the inauguration of the supervisory board of the company in Abuja showed apart from the IDB, the government had other multilateral sources lined up for the funding of PHCN.
A summary of its planned funding for TCN from 2013 to 2017 indicates that about $6.831 billion could be obtained by the government in long-term tranches to upgrade and expand electricity transmission network in the country, stating from a $150 million loan from the African Development Bank, AfDB.
Other sources as was disclosed in the blueprint include, World Bank (NEGIP)-$290 million, Eurobond-$135 million, FGN appropriation 2013-2017-$625 million, Agence AfDB-$170 million, MYTO Capex-$11 million, Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria, NDPHC, Ltd-$1.6 billion, Chinese XD loan-$500 million, World Bank China Loan-$700 million, and others which were captioned as Chinese pivot loan-$2.5 billion.
Priestman had earlier at a forum organised by the Market Operations department of TCN to commence formal registration of participants in Nigeria’s Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) stated that the TCN will require a huge amount of revenue and capital to stabilise the country’s weak transmission grid.
He however noted there was a general consensus amongst key stakeholders in the sector on the need to quickly strengthen the transmission network in anticipation of possible improvements in power generation from various generation companies and independent power producers, IPPs, in the country.
The IPPs had through the platform of Independent Power Producers Association of Nigeria, IPPAN, raised concerns about the capacity of the transmission network to conveniently convey generated power into the national grid. They equally spoke of their concerns on the capitalisation status of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET), otherwise called the Bulk Trader which they said does not appear financially strong enough to take care of possible financial obligations in the sector.
– Chineme Okafor, This Day
