Mohammed Shosanya
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu,has lamented that some 120 Transmission Company of Nigeria,TCN projects have been stalled for over 20 years because of lack of funding.
He disclosed this on Monday when the Chairman, Senate Committee on power, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe led members of the Committee to the Ministry of Power for an oversight visit to the Ministry and also the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
He stated that vandalization of electricity infrastructures have become more rampant in the North East and South East, adding that some projects that are lying fallow due to lack of funding have been vandalized in the part of the country.
Adelabu,who said that reliance on national grid has to reduce,urged sub national,state governments to utilize the newly passed Electricity Act to invest in power in order to provide some form of backup for the grid.
He disclosed that the incidences of incessant collapses would soon be a thing of the past as the help has come in form of World Bank interventions.
According to the Minister, the World Bank is currently working with the TCN on a project that would last two years and is expected to be a panacea to the grid collapse as it will see the installation of effective and efficient SCADA system.
Speaking,Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz, the Managing Director of TCN, listed the causes of grid collapses to include vandalization, funding and the absence of SCADA, an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition; a computer-based system for gathering and analyzing real-time data to monitor and control equipment that deals with critical and time-sensitive materials or events.
