Electricity: The Federal Government, Wednesday, disclosed that it was
building power transmission line to link up some countries in the West
African sub-region.
Speaking in Abuja at the 2019
participants/key stakeholders interactive forum organised by the Market
Operator, the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN,
Mr. Mohammed Gur Usman, stated that the project will take a 330KV
electricity transmission line right from Nigeria up to Senegal.
He
said, “In the whole of West Africa we are the only one that has the
experience of 330KV but now 330 KV will run from Nigeria unto Senegal.
“Let
me be precise, we are going to have a 330KV that will run from Shiroro
to, to Parakou, Parakou to Northern Togo, Northern Ghana to Cote
deviore.
“Another one will come from Northern Ghana to Senegal to
Guinea-Bissau, to Mali to Burkina Faso and it will join Ghana. This is
the study that we have launched.”
To this ends, Usman charged the
major stakeholders in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI,
especially, the Market Operator, MO, to be ready to assume the task of
regional player in the sector.
He said, “As the Chairman of West
Africa Pool, WAP, I made the WAP to draft, the directives which was
approved on the 22nd of May and 22nd of December, 2018.
“That is
the written of ECOWAS Head of State and Government of 22nf of December
2018. They approved that three directives and what are those directives
that we forwarded to ECOWAS for approval are:
“First, All
utilities in West Africa must have their revenue requirement. The second
directive is that countries that elect not to give the requirement,
they should budget for it in a transparent manner.
“This
means that if the utilities do not have their course reflective tariff
then the countries should budget for it in a transparent manner that is
they should provide for it in their national budget.
“We did not
stop there, we said that all utilities in west Africa should conduct
themselves in such a way that they should do their procurement in a
transparent manner- meaning they should adapt competitive procurement of
their services and their goods because if we have the budget and we
have the money and we apply it in an inefficient manner, it means that
cost of energy will soon go up.
“In reality, if it is truly a
market is driven by rules and regulation and people have to comply with
the rules and there has to be sanction for performance and there has to
be a reward of non-performance and a reward for extraordinary
performance.
“If a market is existing in such a way that
everybody does not performance and can get away with it, there is no way
that that market can grow or perform.”
According to him, “TCN
may probably cease to exist very soon and then you will have TSP and
ISO, ISO will be the one that will be operating the market operator
under ISO and everything that I have to do for that transition to take
place, I have been doing it daily. Every day I have been doing those
things that would lead to those organizations to separate.
“Because
we have not applied the market position in our market tenders, in
solar, you cannot say that Nigeria has comparative advantage but, in
terms of normal generation that would be done by gas and hydro.
“Nigeria
still has comparative advantage across West Africa. Which means there
is a demand for electricity from here to the rest of West Africa? What
we are doing is to enable that happen. To enable that happen, we are
going to build a transition line across West Africa so that we can
export energy from here to the rest of Africa.
“I am happy to tell you that the design consultancy and the environmental study for the medium backbone were launched.
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