The House of Representatives Committee on Power has directed the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to present to it details of loans incurred and the projects attached to it from 2019 to date.
This is even as the new TCN Acting Managing Director, Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz, disclosed that the immediate focus of the new TCN management would be on replacing or repairing existing equipment, which are failing and prone to breakdowns, assuring that regular, proactive maintenance processes could be institutionalized to reduce the occurrence and impact of breakdowns.
The House Committee frowned at the practice of procuring loans and spending them without appropriation or approval by the National Assembly.
The Chairman of House of Representatives Committee, Hon. Magaji Dawu Aliyu, gave the directive while leading other members of the committee on oversight function at the TCN Corporate Headquarters, Abuja.
He disclosed that the House of Representatives has been mandated to probe the Power Sector from the inception of privatisation process till date beginning from next week.
According to the House Committee Chairman, “We are basically here to note four things: First you have a multilateral way of getting funding for the projects you do and through appropriation.
“We want to know the projects that were done in 2019,how much you got in 2019 in terms of budget releases, how much you got from loans.
“We want to find out how much project was executed in 2019 and how much Internally generated revenue and what are the money used for and which project they were used for. The loans you got and possible grant also and how much was it in 2019 and what was it done with.
“It should be documented so that we could go through them and make our own inputs.
“Certainly, the auditor general would soon be around to ensure that things are done properly. As you know this is an anti corruption government.
“The House has just been mandated to investigate the whole power privatisation, which means that from the Bureau for Public Enterprises to the Discos would need to be looked at. That would commence next week.This would ensure that this issues concerning power would be sorted out.
Hon. Dawu Aliyu commended the TCN for what it has achieved so far, adding however that there are still room for improvement.”
On his part the TCN Acting Managing Director, Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz,
stressed that the journey to the strengthening of the transmission sector must start with a critical transformation of the existing system.
He said: “Where the Government, regulator and TCN Management will all play core roles, with the government and regulator taking the lead to create the right investment whilst TCN focus on implementing new technology, faster project execution and improving operational efficiencies.
“We are also going to prioritize on expanding our capacity via new projects that will span across the entire Nation. These are some of the considerations that will help in achieving the goal in improving the performance of the transmission sector.”
