The Minister of power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo has called on the Nigeria Customs Service to desist from keeping government consignments in the port for a long period of time due to accumulation of demmurage or clearing costs so as to help the government use the items to better the lives of the people.
The Minister made the call when he paid an appreciation visit to the Apapa Command of the service last week after the 248 containers belonging to Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in the custody of the service since 2003 was released last week.
Prof. Nebo expressed appreciation to the management of the service for making it possible for the release of the consignments which were ordered by the defunct Power holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
According to him, holding on to such consignments will stall the achievement of the purpose for which the consignments were made to address.
He said his visit was bothered on the release of the 248 containers of electrical implements, equipments and instruments of all sorts that have been held at the ports beginning from 2003.
In his words, “the customs Service graciously agreed to release these containers to the PHCN now defunct and being represented by the TCN.
“Virtually all these equipments have been ordered by the defunct PHCN fully paid for, came into Nigeria and got abandoned in Nigeria,” he said.
He stated that some of the projects stalled as a result of the abandonment of the equipments contained in the containers at the ports include: Kano/Kambusto/Dakata/Hadejia transmission substation, oba/Nnewi substation, Dambata substation, Omotosho/Epe/Ajah lines, Askon/Ibom 33KV lines and IGANGAN/Igbara substation.
Others are:
Ikorodu/Odongunyan/Shagamu transmission lines, Nsukka/Ayangba lines and supply of current transformers and capacitor voltage transformers.
However, he promised to investigate the reasons for the abandonment of the containers for such a long time in order to forestall re-occurrence of such in the power sector and hopefully in other sectors.
Also speaking, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Mac Kast said the efforts were underway by the company to refurbish and expand the power sector of the country.
He added tha TCN expected that it would have the capacity to evacuate 20,000 capacity of power by the year 2020.
“It is our goal that we are going to double the evacuation capacity of TCN. It is our expectation that by 2020, we will have capacity to evacuate 20,000 capacity of power,” he said.
