Nigeria: Group Opposes Removal Of TCN MD

Nigerian Power Consumers Forum (NPCF) has faulted the removal of Mr Usman Gur Mohammed as the Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

According to the group, the action is likely to jeopadise the $1.661 billion multilateral agencies funded power projects in the country.

TCN is currently executing various projects across the country tending towards the expansion of the power transmission to 20,000 megawatts (MW).

The French Development Agency and European Union Grant was $500 million dollars, World Bank gave $486 million, AfDB gave $410 million, Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) brought $238 million and a grant to deliver capacitor bank in Abuja, Nasarawa and Lagos; World Bank is bringing another $27 million for the North Core Project.

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All the projects totalling $1.661 billion except the North East Transmission Project which has been kept in abeyance until security improved are at various stages of implementation because TCN now has the best implementation structure that has strengthened the confidence of these foreign financial institutions.

The group argued that the removal of Mohammed, defeats the objectives of due process in the Federal Government’s establishments and the overall objectives of power sector reform.

General Secretary of the NPCF, Comrade Michael Okoh, said: “President Muhammadu Buhari needs to immediately direct a reversal of the action to save the power sector from the budding dictatorship.

“TCN was already a crumbling block in 2016 despite federal government’s $32 million dollars Manitoba Hydro International Nigeria Limited (MHINL) management contract, which was never the real MHI of Canada, to reform TCN.

“With UG Mohammed at the top of affairs, the public utility firm has been reformed within three years and had attracted $1.66 billion investments to expand TCN capacity to 20,000 megawatts (MW) by 2023 through the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP),” he said.