By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Federal Government on Wednesday said the distribution of the four million free electricity prepaid meters promised by the Central Bank of Nigeria would soon commence across the country.
The Minister of Power, Mamman Saleh, said this while answering questions from State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Saleh assured Nigerians that the government is wrapping up the distribution of its initial one million meters, which he labelled phase zero, and will soon begin the distribution of the four million others, which he dubbed phase one.
He said, “It’s ongoing, we are almost rounding off. We have almost finished with phase zero, we are now going into phase one of the distribution of the meters, that is the remaining four million the Central Bank promised to augment with.
“The first set is one million, we’re about to finish with that, but you know it’s not the target, one million is very negligible compared to the demand of Nigerians.”
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He further disclosed that the FEC approved $8.29 million as well as N3 billion for the execution of six major electricity projects in the country.
Saleh said that the projects, which include the procurement of equipment as well as designs and manufactures, are meant to upgrade Nigeria’s electricity facility and improve power supply across the country.
He added that the Ministry of Power which is under his purview tabled six memoranda to the FEC, with all six being approved.
He said, “The Federal Executive Council today approved six memos under the Ministry of Power. The first one is the award of a contract for the design, manufacturing, and supply of critical spare parts for Crompton Greaves 330 kV, 132 kV, and 33 kV circuit breakers to Messrs. Legen Engineering Nigeria Limited in the sum of N298,339,887.04.
“The second one is the award of the contract for the procurement of 50 sets of 400 AH battery banks, 30 to 50 volts and 30 number of 110-volt battery charges for the substation used by the TCN in favour of Messrs. DTS Transformers Electric Industry Limited at the sum of N644,805,953.10.
“The third award of contract is for the procurement of 50 cent also of 132 kV isolators for the TCN in favour of Messrs. Leading Diagonal Engineering Nigeria Limited in the sum of $840,650 plus N53,900,000 within the delivery period of six months.
“The fourth one is the contract for the design, manufacturing and the supply of three 60/66 MVA 132kV power transformers with accessories and 15 number of 500 kV transformers, 33/0.415kV earthing transformers for the TCN in favour of Messrs. Zhenjiang Transformers Company Limited, in the sum of N1,296,953,044.55 with a delivery period of 12 months.”
