The Federal Goverment has given the contractors of the power distribution projects a 60-day ultimatum to finish the job or face the consequence.
This warning was issued by the Vice President Namadi Sambo during a meeting with stakeholders and contractors in his conference room at the Presidential Villa.
The Federal Government has expressed great displeasure towards the state of this project.
Sun reports:
Contractors working on power distribution projects across the country have been given the next 60 days to complete and handover or be blacklisted, the Federal Government has warned.
Government is particularly unhappy that the contractors have been unable to connect and energise completed 33KVA feeders to inject substations of Enugu, Jos and Port Harcourt DISCOS.
Vice President Namadi Sambo handed down the warning at a meeting with stakeholders and contractors handling Federal Government power transmission project at his conference room at the Presidential Villa.
In the same vein, government has ordered that the distribution of all the transformers currently lying idle at the warehouses of the distribution companies at a fee be spread over a period of time.
This is even as it has announced that DISCOS can now buy some assets owned by the former PHCN with payments spread over a period of 15 years.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali, said, “His Excellency the Vice President directed that all transformers that are in government warehouse or at the ports that have been cleared over the years, will now be given to the DISCOS at a fee. So in the next few days, federal government team will be talking with the DISCOS on these transformers with the view to making them available to improve power across the country.
“Any contractor who fails to deliver the project at the end of the two-month deadline will have its name blacklisted from handling any contract in Nigeria any longer. And this information will be sent to the Bureau of Public Procurement in order to have them in its data bank. This is to ensure that such companies are not considered for future contracts”, he said.
Igali said that the meeting was “convened to review the situation of power supply in the country and essentially to work out strategies through which government investment through the NDPHC in terms of various assets at the distribution level could be completed and transferred to the DISCOS at a price, not free of charge”.
Also speaking, the Managing Director of NDPHC, James Olotu, stated that the NDPHC was carrying out through the NIPP, about 297 distribution projects across the length and breath of Nigeria and only 57 have been completed while the rest are at various stages of completion, none less than 60 percent.
