Power: Military Tightens Security as TCN Plans to Reconnect Borno State Ministry of state power under the leadership of Hon. Mohammed Wakil has reached an agreement with the Nigerian Army to provide adequate security engineers from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) who have assigned to reconnect Borno State back to the national electricity grid. The ministry of power said in Abuja that the state, which has been under attacks by Boko Haram insurgents will soon be reconnected to the national power grid following the agreement with the military to protect TCN engineers who will repair vandalised power assets in the area. “Insurgents had vandalised the 132 KVA power line from Damboa to Maiduguri, cutting power supply to the state and efforts to reconnect the line has been hampered by ongoing insurgency and counter insurgency in the area,”, a technical assistant to the Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil, Umar Baba Mustapha had disclosed. Mustapha is the head of a technical committee that was recently set up by Wakil to look into the power outages. He explained that the TCN has reached a final stage on the reconnection of Borno to national grid and now requires optimum security to conclude the work. He said, sequel to the agreement, several correspondences had been exchanged with the military to get their commitment on the requested security cover. ”The minister is constantly in personal touch with the military authorities in addition to his written directive to the management of TCN to effect the reconnection without delay. The military has accepted the request of the minister to provide security cover in view of the security challenges in the area affected by the vandalism,” Mustapha added. He stated that the work schedule of the reconnection team would not be disclosed for security purposes, adding that: “A team has visited the site of the vandalised power lines and both the TCN and the military will soon swing into action. The minister had issued written and verbal directives that the reconnection be done now that the security situation has improved in the affected areas and this directive is been urgently complied with.” Meanwhile, the electricity distribution profile of Abuja is expected to be further supported with the imminent construction of a 400 megawatts (MW) alternative electricity plant by an energy consortium, Enegas and Power/GE Consortium. A statement from the ministry of power said the investors had come on the invitation of Wakil to generate that much for Abuja using alternative energy sources. Led by Mr. Frank Karkitie, the consortium includes General Electric, Enegas and Standard Bank.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 09:26:21 +0000
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