Nigerian government set to improve power supply, approves projects
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved projects to improve power supply across the country.
The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, disclosed this to State House correspondents after the FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the projects were aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and shore up power supply in the country.
The minister said: “I presented two memos to the council today and they were approved. The first memo council approved the award of contract for design supply and installation of 1x60MBA, 132×33 KV transmission substation with associated 4×132 KV line bay extension at Hong local government area of Adamawa State in the sum of N6.5 billion consisting of two components one is offshore and onshore.
“The offshore is $6.9 million and the onshore is N3.3 billion at the Central Bank of Nigeria prevailing exchange rate and 7.5 percent VAT; the delivery period is 24 months.
“This seeks to raise the capacity of the supply around that area and it’s going to affect so many towns and villages. There’s a very important local government headquarters around that area.
“It is going to affect Song which is a local government headquarters in Adamawa State; Gombi is also another local government headquarters; Garkida town and then Hong.
“There are also Mudi, Woba, Michika and Madagari. There is an existing 132KV line that passes through this area; so, what we are doing now is to drop a substation there.
“The hope is by the time all these interventions we are making on the grid reaches up to 11,000 MW or thereabout that it will be able to withstand and take it off; so, this is the intervention.’’
Aliyu said the second memo was to procure power transformers and associated spare parts for TCN to be deployed to six locations.
“One is to Aiyede in Oyo, the offshore component is $1.8 billion, the onshore is N98 million.
“The second one is Gusau in Zamfara, the third one is Kankara in Katsina State; the next one is Minna, Niger; then the fifth one is to Okearo in Ogun.
“The sixth one is in Damaturu, Yobe; this one is very peculiar because as you may be aware, for over one year, Maiduguri has not been enjoying full electricity,” he added.
