The Transmission Company of Nigeria has identified lack of funding as a major challenge hampering the completion of 130 ongoing transmission projects in the country.
The TCN said it would be engaging 30 local and foreign investors in its bid to expand the country’s power transmission infrastructure.
It said it would be engaging the investors in its investors’ financing scheme, as their capabilities in terms of technologies and finances had been duly ascertained.
The acting Managing Director, TCN, Dr. Atiku Abubakar, disclosed this during a facility inspection of some of the ongoing projects and a training exercise for some auditors in Lagos.
“We have shortlisted them and now we are building the framework for repaying the investors,” he said.
According to Atiku, the TCN has identified 130 ongoing projects that have been stalled as a result of lack of funding and other challenges.
He said out of this number, the TCN had identified 30 projects that were critical.
Beyond waiting for the investors, he said the company was also looking inwards by talking to government and others to raise funds for the project execution.
He said TCN needed about N15bn annual investment in two or three years to achieve 8,000 megawatts, which is its expected transmission capacity in the short run.
Abubakar said that the improvement witnessed in the country’s power generation was occasioned by improved gas supply to generating stations.
He explained that the highest peak which was about 4,652MW in July could be improved to the current transmission capacity of about 5,300MW.
He said, “But as generation is improving, we are expected to expand transmission capacity to be able to evacuate all that is being generated in the stations for distribution to final users.”
He said the privatisation of the TCN was likely going to be in the long term, as discussions on the expected privatisation was not on the table yet.
He added, “We are making all effort to ensure that funds are raised outside the appropriation of government; we have investors who are ready to come into the country to invest in our schemes.”
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