From David Onuoja, Abuja
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and other stakeholders in the electricity industry has blamed Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), over its lackadaisical attitude towards maintaining transmission line which lead to the collapsed of national grid severally in the country.
During the public hearing organised by NERC and held at the national headquarters of Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Abuja; the converged stakeholders blamed TCN for not be able to identify and take proper maintenance on its equipment.
The Chairman/CEO of the Commission, Engr. Sanusi Gàrba, during the hearing asked TCN why there was fire incident in Jeba, Niger State and their response since the outbreak. Engr Nafisat Ali representing TCN could not give accurate answers to it.
NERC Chairman also blamed TCN for having at least N30b in its account but could not detect the real reason behind the fire outbreak in Jeba or carry out maintenance.
Earlier in her presentation on behalf of the TCN Managing Director, the Executive Director, (ISO); Engr. Nafisat Ali said, the system was compromised as a result of the fire outbreak in Jeba transmission transformers.
Nafisat who could not answer some questions from the Commission’s chairman, defend her self by linking the problem to generation, gas, transmission and lack of free governor mode of operation.
Also, stakeholders including Resource persons like engineer John Ayodele, Dr Abdullahi Adamu, Mallam Shamsudeen Mahmud and Umar Sani Bello of Jos DisCos and Dr Joy Ogaji, from GenCos, while speaking separately, all emphasised on the way forward saying, all the power value chain especially TCN should be serious in the course of their duty to avoid putting the country into a total darkness.
They asked TCN to look for a way or the final solution to the crisis of transmission failure.
Stakeholders also advocated for more national or three regional grid in the country; while others hammered on lack of proper training for those in charge.