The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola today assured that government would fulfil its promise of stabilising electricity supply in the country with more 90 projects in the power transmission subsector to be completed before the year ends.
Fashola, who gave the assurance while commissioning the Odogunyan 2×60MVA, 132/33KV transmission substation in Ikorodu area of Lagos state that the projects would be facilitated with the release of 502 containers of equipment.
According to him, the equipment had been detained at the Lagos sea ports in the last 10 years following inability of the previous administrations to settle port charges, and agency fees.
He said the effort would guarantee expansion of transmission infrastructure nationwide with the attendant positive implications for improved power generation through the present administration’s incremental power policy.
The minister said: “When I took over as minister of power we were merely doing about 5,000 mega watts but as at today we are doing over 7,000 mega watts so this is about 2,000 added mega watts. We will also have to support the Distribution Companies as we advance with our power infrastructure increase to enable them ensure proper distribution of what we anticipate to generate.
“Already, the Transmission Company of Nigeria has continued to improve on its network and like I said new 90 projects will be executed before the end of the year.
“On the other hand, we expect to increase power generation soon as Azura and Afam power facilities are coming on stream in the next few months so more efforts would be directed at stabilising distribution at this point”, Fashola assured.
On the newly commissioned project, the minister recalled that the project was delayed for seven years due to lapses in the handling of the power projects by the last administration.
He clarified: “The contract for the project was awarded way back in 2009, and the contractor moved to site in 2010 but then experienced serious setbacks until this administration took up the challenge and ensured its completion.
“If the last administration was focused on solving the country’s energy crises it wouldn’t have abandoned 805 containers of power equipment at the seaports but like I said we were able to secure release of 502 of them through budgetary allocation in 2016 and 2017″, the minister added.
While commending the contractor, Lagace Power Limited for delivering the project on time, the minister projected that the 90 megawatts of power that would be evacuated from the facility would improve socio-economic activities in the area.
