The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, revealed that the council approved a memorandum for the provision of alternative power supply to line to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital which he said, had been disconnected from the national grid for 24 months due to insurgency.
“I presented three memos to council which have been approved and the memos as follows. One is to have an alternative supply line for of electricity for Maiduguri through 33 KV line along the road site. Maiduguri got disconnected due to the activities of insurgents and have been disconnected from the national grid for around 24 months.
“So, we are now trying to supply through another new line. What this memo seeks to achieve is a double cycle 33KV which will take up to around 14megawatts to Maiduguri from the Damaturu 330 substation. And the reason is that the 33KV line will be easier to restore even if something affects it because it is by the roadside and it is on concrete poles or wooden poles.
“So this memo still goes on to provide the 33 line alternative double circuit at a cost of N3,164,293,880 plus N250m for security and other logistics, a total of N3.4bn naira and is awarded to SodoGuru Nigeria Limited with a completion period of three months.
“The second one seeks to provide substations one Geidam in Yobe State and the other one in Zing in Taraba State. These are all local government headquarters. Geiden is a local government headquarters at the border to Niger and our intention is to provide substations 1-3-2 substations in each of the local government across the country.
“The project substation at Zing will cost $12,352,896.24 with a Naira component of N2,701,805,061.34 at the prevailing exchange rate at the time of payment.
“The Geidam project will cost $11,629,824.81 with Naira component of N2,641,257,634.84. Both projects have a completion period of 24 months.
“A third memo presented by the ministry has five substations and one-line construction.”
According to Aliyu, “The first among the six is to provide a substation of two by 60MVA in Birnin Kudu in Jigawa State cost of $13,438,265.40 plus naira component of N2,969,365,195.15 with a completion period of 24 months.
“The second one is to provide same in Kazaure at the cost of $14,389,822.22 with naira component of N2,245,456,369,309.68 at 24-month delivery period.
