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Manitoba TCN Contract Cancellation: Presidency Denies Rift Between Jonathan and Sambo

By on November 15, 2012

President Goodluck Jonathan and his deputy, Namadi Sambo break and share Cassava bread

The management contract for the Transmission Company of Nigeria awarded to a Canadian firm, Manitoba Hydro International has been cancelled.

The presidency disclosed this on Wednesday saying, the contract was cancelled because of a series of infractions on the part of the Bureau of Public Enterprise.

It also denied the rumour that the cancellation of the contract has caused any friction between the Vice-President Namadi Sambo, who chairs the National Council on Privatisation and his boss President Goodluck Jonathan.

This clarification was made by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati during a media brief.

He said the reason behind the cancellation was that BPE awarded the contract contrary to the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

Abati said, “The BPE has no power to approve a management contract, according to the provision of Section 16 sub section 4 of the 2007 Public Procurement Act. That section says that the BPE must obtain a certificate of no objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement.

“Another section of the Act says that certain contracts must be approved by the Federal Executive Council. The management contract in question is $23.6m, which is above the approved threshold of BPE. The vice-president is a member of FEC.

“For the BPE to go ahead and approve that contract simply means that due process was not followed. It is a matter of due process, a matter of best practice; it is not a personality matter. The infraction was committed by the BPE.”

Abati said, “Yes, the President has cancelled the contract because it was not done in accordance with the Public Procurement Act. President Goodluck Jonathan has directed that a new process for the selection of the management contractor should begin immediately and should be completed in 30 days in order not to cause unnecessary panic.

“The President also directed that the new process should conform to international best practices.”

In another development, the Presidential Task Force on Power has met with officials of TCN to resolve the recent spate of system collapse leading to blackouts in the country.

Worried over the blackouts, the PTFP Chairman, Mr. Beks Dagogo-Jack, charged regional and top managers of TCN to commit to the target of 5,000MW electricity generation by December.

The task force was told that some businesses dying out because of the improved power state might have joined forces with corrupt workers to frustrate power stability in the country.

According to Okigbo, the relations between the TCN management team and the technical heads of the task force focused on the review of the sudden rise in the frequency of power grid collapses.

She said, “The meeting dealt extensively with the immediate and remote causes of the collapses and identified a few remedy plans with short to long-term delivery times.

“From the National Control Centre Manager’s submission, it was made clear that there are two major causes for the system collapses namely; generation-side triggers, especially during periods of very low power availability, and transmission-side triggers, with the latter contributing over 60 per cent of the trigger incidents.

“Top on the list of major causes for the collapses is the overgrown vegetation interacting with high and low voltage power lines, which worsens during the wet season and through logging activities.”