N5 billion Contract Controversy: Transmission Company Of Nigeria, BPE lock horns over illegal payment

The Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE and the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, have taken to tango over 33 contracts worth N5 billion which were considered non-emergency by the Bureau.

The TCN awarded the contracts under the emergency process, but which the BPE insisted that there non-emergency citing breach of the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

The contractual breach was widely published in several online news outlets and the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz reacted to the allegation by the BPE that he violated the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in N5,677,692,943.26 worth of contract award, insisting that he never ran afoul of the provisions of Public Procurement Act, PPA as alleged.

In the document sighted by some select journalists, it was discovered that the BPP reviewed and responded to TCN’s request letter for “No Objection” for 285 contracts it awarded under emergency process and the citing relevant provisions of PPA, declined to approve the request and clearly stated that the company violated the Procurement Act in 33 of the contracts.

The Bureau pointed out that the 33 contracts the TCN awarded under the emergency process were not qualified to be emergency, according to the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

Reacting to the BPP report, TCN in a rejoinder by its General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, the company did not violate the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 as alleged by the BPP document.

The TCN spokesperson said, “In accordance with the request by Sahara Reporters quoting the document from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on alleged violations of some provisions of the law in the procurement process by the management of the Transmission Company of Nigeria(TCN), contrary to that allusion, no such thing has happened—at least not with the astute management in place at TCN.”

She stressed that Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, states that “A procuring entity may for the purpose of this Act, carry out emergency procurement where the; (a) the country is either seriously threatened by or actually confronted with a disaster, catastrophe, war, insurrection or act of God. The condition or quality of goods, equipment, building, or publicly owned capital goods may seriously deteriorate unless action is urgently and necessarily taken to maintain them in their actual value or usefulness.”

According to the TCN spokesperson, “Under this condition, TCN can undertake emergency procurement of the projects.

“The process of management is difficult and sometimes requires extraordinary measures to put things in place. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to state at this juncture, that every contract awarded to remedy the perceived observations followed due process.
“The TCN management has in place Technical and Legal departments that scrutinizes all submissions along with the Procurement and Audit Departments; together, they ensure that regulations governing pre and actual qualifications are in place such as valid Company Profiles, Tax, and detailed status of relevant contractors.

“Under the circumstances, it is impossible for any underhand practice to take place, not to mention contravention of the rules.
“The management of the TCN is focused on delivery of its mandate and has never shied from this responsibility.

“However, in the course of meeting Nigeria’s dire electricity needs, the management is not averse to adopting some accelerated procurement process (Emergency procurement), where there is need to adopt special methods in the procurement of critical and very urgent infrastructure, that require interactions with that of other stakeholders in the sector.

“Furthermore, it is the determination of the TCN management never to complain but to discharge its duties with the highest level of competence and professionalism, especially with the significant signing of what is known as ‘Service Level Agreement’ between it and distribution companies (Discos) across the country on zero tolerance for outages amongst other things, to avoid tampering of the reputation and revenue of the company, if these projects are not procured within reasonable time.”

She further stated that it is important to understand that the management of electricity generation and distribution revolves around some kind of sensitivity which is open to professionals in the field and some stakeholders.

“We need to reiterate that the TCN management operates within the ambits of the law for which all ratifications necessary for the smooth running of its operations were duly received in accordance with the law.

“TCN cannot embark on any direct emergency procurement process for the fun of it and all the works and supply contracts carried out in the course of its assignment are in order and justified.

“The management will always remain patriotic and absolutely committed to the discharge of its duties; it is in the light of this that in line with the provisions of section 42 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, for direct procurement, TCN obtained official approval from the BPP for the said projects after due process.

“It is important to remain focused and not to be distracted.

“However, it is pertinent for to know that the TCN has over 18,000km of 330kV and 132kV high voltage transmission lines and transmission towers traversing the entire nation, and several through very difficult terrains including swamps, forests; including areas prone to flooding which causes rapid erosion of tower bases and natural disasters.

“Also some of these towers and lines pass through landmines in insurgency prone areas, which is inevitable as the lines must convey electricity to citizens.

“These difficult terrains negatively impact on smooth flow of electricity and underscores the need for emergency procurement in the case of repairs. As a result of the scourge of insurgency and vandalisation that threatens transmission, these towers must be quickly repaired to forestall partial or total collapse of the nation’s grid. In this case, the method of emergency procurement to quickly effect repairs would be adopted!

“In addition to that, please note that the TCN transmits power from over 25 Generating Companies located at different parts of the country to 11 Distribution Companies and some international customers; this large expanse of transmission network is exposed to several attacks by vandals and insurgents.

“A typical example is that within the months of December, 2023, till date there have been several acts of vandalism which brought down critical transmission towers causing power outages in more than one state at a time.

“Specifically, on the 21st of December, 2023, transmission tower 372 around Katsita village in Yobe State was vandalised bringing down the 330KV Transmission Tower which pulled Tower 373 along the same route!

“Again, on the 28th of December of same year, 3 transmission towers were brought down along the Maiduguri-Damaturu transmission line with explosives by insurgents. And this threw the entire Northeast into darkness.

“Situations like this require immediate mobilisation of men and resources to restore power supply to the affected millions of Nigerians who must have been thrown into darkness by the incident. Approval for such emergency works are thereafter obtained from the relevant authorities.”