The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Monday announced that the Transmission Company of Nigeria and the Niger Delta Power Holding Company were set to inaugurate over 190 electricity transmission and distribution projects across the country in few weeks’ time.
According to him, the Federal Government is investing in the expansion of the transmission capacity through the TCN by building more substations and expanding existing ones.
“At the moment, there are over 90 TCN projects for transmission expansion, which the TCN will be inaugurating nationwide in the next few weeks and months. Some are completed and some are nearing completion,” the minister told participants at a power stakeholders’ event.
Fashola, who chaired the 26th monthly power sector operators’ meeting in Abia State, in his speech that was made available to our correspondent in Abuja, added that the NDPHC would also energise power distribution assets.
“The same is also true of the NDPHC, as it has over 100 distribution projects at various stages of completion under the NIPP (National Integrated Power Projects). Over the next few weeks and months, they will be going out to inaugurate and energise those projects,” the minister stated.
He said the projects would help the distribution companies to improve power supply and service delivery to their communities, and appealed to the Discos involved to take ownership of the facilities and put them to use.
Fashola observed that Nigerians had acknowledged improvement in power supply.
He said those who were most vocal in condemnation when the situation appeared very dire were uttering some muted acknowledgment that power supply had improved.
The minister stated, “We must continue to draw inspiration from well-meaning and right-thinking Nigerians, who were gracious enough to publicly acknowledge that they are saving some money from diesel they used to spend for generators.
“They are running their generators for fewer hours and they are getting comparably more power than before. It is because of those gracious and well-meaning and right-thinking Nigerians that we must dig deeper, work harder and be more determined to improve service delivery.”
