6 BUSINESS DAY NEWS
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Crime cases increased by 7% in 2017 TCN targets 15GW grid expansion with $1.57bn funding from World Bank, others BUNMI BAILEY
ISAAC ANYAOGU
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ransmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, says it is expanding grid capacity from the current 6,000mw capacity to 15GW capacity through funding from international financiers. At a workshop in Abuja on Tuesday, Mohammed Gur, TCN managing director, disclosed that this was part of an initial process for the acquisition of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) and Energy Management System (EMS) for the national grid under a programme tagged ‘Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP).’ Gu r s a i d T R E P wa s launched to reposition TCN so it could raise significant funding from the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), African Development Bank (AfDB) and other development partners. According to Chuks
Nwani, energy lawyer, the funding is a line of credit that would be advanced to the company to assist the implementation of the eligible customer declaration. The facility will enable customers with capacity to pay connect to the grid and TCN would repay the loan based on collections made. “It is expected to stabilise, expand and provide necessary flexibility and redundancy for a 15GW national grid that meets the needs of all industry operators and their customers,” Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, said in an address at the opening of the workshop, where he was represented by Louis Edozien, permanent secretary, Power. Fashola said to achieve this goal, TREP must deliver a functional SCADA and EMS for the use of TCN, as an operator of the national grid, the industry operators as the users of the national grid, the NERC and NEMSA. TCN has been unsuccessful in delivering a functional
SCADA, EMS and telecommunication system due to substations apparatus/control subsystem deficiencies, improper project scoping, unsatisfactory project execution and deficient capacity of the intended users and operators of the system. Due to this situation, it has been difficult to get detailed national grid operational data by managers, operators, regulators, policy makers, customers and observers in a secure, unfiltered manner. “Instructions to distribution companies to increase or decrease off-take at trading points is still done manually using ad-hoc communications, available load is still allocated to generation companies manually using ad-hoc communications without acceptable levels of transparency,” said Fashola. The government is outsourcing the SCADA and EMS system to private companies and now wants to fully optimise use of TCN’s fibre optic telecommunications assets
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he number of crime cases that occurred in 2017 increased by 7 percent to 134,663 from the 125,790 cases reported in 2016, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Crimes report 2017. “The only lucrative business in Nigeria today is crime,” Aliyu Umar Babangida, CEO, Goldwater and Riversand, a national security solutions and resource consultancy, told BusinessDay in a telephone interview. “Criminology is seen as lucrative in the country and if anybody has any doubt that crime rate are increasing, such a person is not staying in Nigeria or the person is a criminal, as even the political class cannot deny it. “All the integrity and discipline that our president is parading is nonsense because it is not showing as even the service chiefs are criminals. The statistics are just icing on the cake, the real thing is out there, just take a walk on the streets and you will see that crime is the real thing,” Babangida said. The increase in crime rate in the country disputes the peace of the nation, as the country was
ranked very low in the Global Peace Index (GPI) report 2018 by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). It was ranked 148th position out of 163 countries. The GPI ranks different countries according to their level of peacefulness. It is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. This report presents the most comprehensive datadriven analysis to date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies. Going by data from the NBS, offence against property has the highest number of crime cases reported with 68,579 of such cases reported. Offence against persons recorded 53,641 cases, while offence against lawful authority recorded the least with 12,443 cases recorded, respectively. In terms of states with the highest number of crime cases, Lagos State has the highest percentage share of total cases reported with 50,975 (37.9 percent) cases recorded, Abia and Delta State followed closely with 12,408(9.2 percent) and 7,150(5.3 percent) cases recorded, respectively.
Thursday 28 June 2018
BYMEDA Project 10+ SME Challenge to create 30,000 jobs by 2020 SAMUEL ESE, Yenagoa
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programme of the Bayelsa Microfinance and Enterprise Development Agency (BYMEDA), Project 10+ SME Challenge is expected to create 30,000 jobs by the year 2020, according to the Director-General, Ebiekure Jasper Eradiri. Eradiri made the disclosure on Wednesday at the commemoration of the 2018 World SMEs Day with the theme, Youth Dimension in Yenagoa, which coincided with the Q2 Dialogue Series of the agency. The special guest of honour and Commissioner for Trade, Industry and Investment, Funkazi Koroye-Crooks explained that beneficiaries would receive mentors hip, free shops and equipment as part of the N500 million grants to young entrepreneurs by Governor Henry Seriake Dickson. The Project 10+ SME Challenge is one of four programmes introduced by the agency aimed at promoting small and medium enterprises in the state and improving the local economy.
Disbursement of N231bn power intervention fund not yielding result - Reps, stakeholders KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
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ederal lawmakers, regulatory agencies and other stakeholders on Wednesday expressed concerns over the disbursement of N231 billion to electricitydistributioncompanies, generation companies and gas companies without commensurate results in the power supply to consumers across the country. They expressed the concerns
during the investigative public hearing into ‘Excessive electricity charges being levied on consumers by Discos, chaired by Ajibola Famurewa, and urged the CBN to discontinue disbursement of public funds to pre-qualified business entities who bided for theprivatisationofPowerHolding CompanyLimitedbutchannelled the funds to other priority sectors, especially the medium and small scale enterprises (MSMEs).
L-R: Olusegun Ajamolaya, divisional police officer, Victoria Island; Bankole Bernard, president, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA); Fela Ibidapo, divisional head, corporate communications, Heritage Bank plc, and Stephen Isokariari, chairman, board of trustees, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), during the official launch of Nigeria Travel Practitioners Identification Card (NTPIC), sponsored by Heritage Bank, in Lagos, yesterday.
Plateau killings: PENGASSAN wants security agencies to change strategies OLUSOLA BELLO
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etroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has condemned the continued and ruthless killing of innocent Nigerians across the country by armed bandits and marauders, and called on the security agencies to change its strategies of tackling the crisis if the one they are using now is not working. The senior staff trade union also frowned at the statement by a spokesman of Meyatti Allah that the killings were in response
to rustling of about 100 cattle in the area, adding, “This is not an excuse for lawlessness in a country that has government and security apparatus to handle issues.” It urged the Federal Government to rise above just condemning such killings and courageously do all it would take to protect the lives and properties of citizens, which is the whole essence of governance. Speaking on the killing of over 100 innocent people by herdsmen in Plateau State, PENGASSAN in a statement signed by its national public relations
officer, Fortune Obi, expressed condolence to the families of the victims and the people of Plateau State. “We commiserate with the families of the victims, the people and Government of Plateau State, which is the latest of such incidents with the killing of over 100 people last weekend. “ P E N G A S SA N n o t e s that the Security Agencies, especially the police seem helpless in the face of the mindless and unprovocative killing of innocent Nigerians. “We therefore call for more recruitment into all
arms of the Security Agencies, including the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and also advise the Security Agencies to review their strategies to put an end to the killing. “ The Security Agencies should improve their relationship with the communities to enable them get necessary information before any attacks.” PENGASSAN implored the government to deploy a special squad of military and other forces permanently to troubled prone areas of Benue, Taraba and Plateau states.