The President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Prof. Sadiq Zubair Abubakar, has stated that lack of transparency in the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) led to the critical state of Nigeria’s power grid and its incessant collapse.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Prof Sadiq said the model of TCN made no provision for independent investigation for causes of grid collapse with the company serving as the designer, maintainer and fixer of the grid.
“We are not happy with the incessant failure of the national grid, what we discovered is that the TCN has been a regulator and player in a way and we have made submission that that cannot be.
“It is an aberration in any country, they design, install, maintain and when it fails they are the one that repairs it which is not to be so and nobody can independently investigate.
“So we are happy that the government has listened to us and split the agency to make sure that the operator and regulatory aspect comes in handy as NERC is given more power to work with relevant agencies,” he said.
The president also lamented the removal of COREN from the federal government’s budgetary allocation.
“In the coming of this administration, we were defunded but how does the government want us to regulate engineering, investigate infrastructures, police expatriates that are taking the fortune of our citizens without this fund,” he added.
While stating that the agency is looking at innovative ways to source for funding, he pleaded with the ICRC to look into its proposal of using Public-Private-Partnership to build its headquarters in Jabi, Abuja.
On his part, the Director General of the ICRC, Dr Jobson Oseodion Ewalefoh, said there is the need for Nigerians to upscale their engineering skills to reduce employment gap, so that in the overall aspect, the development of Nigeria will be based on quality and resilient engineering.
He said the commission is ready to partner with COREN in getting its headquarters to strengthen its activities.
