Facilities Repairs Raise Hope On Power Supply

A Petrol Tanker which fell on a Golf Car Across Nyanya-Abuja highway last Saturday.

Hope of improved elec
tricity  supply in the country has been rekindled following ongoing repairs and upgrade of power facilities embarked across the nation by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Dikki told newsmen that the Federal Government provided N300 million to TCN to improve the nation’s power infrastructure and reassured Nigerians that the step would address the electricity supply challenges facing the nation.
Dikki who spoke recently at a public function in Lagos disclosed that the N300 million was part of the one billion Euro-bond which government dedicated for improvement of infrastructure in the nation.
He stated further that funding of TCN repairs and upgrade was no longer a challenge the Director-General, explaining that the company has sufficient fund to complete the ongoing rehabilitation and urged the company to utilize the fund efficiently to achieve desired result.
He also said that government has identified other areas of project financing for effective power supply through Independent Power Project (IPPs), stressing that a good number of IPP projects have been completed adding that such steps would improve power supply to the national grid.
Dikki expressed satisfaction with the privatization strategy in the sector, noting that eight months after handing over the power sector to private investors, there have been tremendous  improvement especially in equipment upgrade and customer service delivery.
The Public Affairs Manager of Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED), Mr John Onyi had attributed the poor power supply experienced in most parts of Port Harcourt and its environs to present poor state of facilities.
He reassured that after the ongoing repairs and upgrade of facilities by TCN, PHED would boost electricity  supply in the city.
Onyi noted that within July 13-23 when the repairs would take place the consumers would experience outages and enjoined them to be patient as the aim was for better service delivery.
The PHED manager disclosed that work was also going at the vandalized five tower (132KV) that feed electricity to Mgbuoba, Rumuosi, University of Port Harcourt, and University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital that had suffered serious supply challenges in recent times.

Chris Oluoh