Nigeria’s President H.E Muhammadu Buhari has approved and given his support for the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The West African nation’s Minister for Power, Aliyu Abubakar, revealed this when he responded to a question about calls for the unbundling of TCN at the NexTier Power Dialogue in Abuja on Tuesday night.
After the power sector was privatised in 2013 and the successor generation and distribution companies handed over to private investors, the TCN was left under the ownership and management of the Federal Government.
The TCN has remained so since then, although operating under some strategic departments, among which include two key components known as the Transmission Service Provider and the System Operator.
Industry experts and operators in other arms of the power value chain had often called for the unbundling of the transmission company into its two key entities, as the calls became loud, following the incessant collapse of the national power grid under the management of TCN.
The Power Minister stated that the process had reached an advanced stage.
Mr Abubakar also told participants at the dialogue that Buhari was supporting the unbundling of the transmission company, adding that recommendations would be made by the office of the Power Minister soon.
He said, “We are working on that and we have gone very far. As I speak with you now, I have some documents which were brought to me in that regard this afternoon. I’ve not gone through them because I had to prepare for this meeting.
“But as soon as I leave here, I will look at them. Very soon, we will separate the two certificates to unbundle the TCN into two entities. And as we go along we will further unbundle to probably make them three.
“But for this one, we have gone very far with it and I don’t want to preempt what was brought to me in terms of recommendation. However, very soon we will do that. We have got the support of Mr President to that effect.”
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com