Abdullahi Mohammed, Abuja
Nigeria’s cabinet has approved N470.8 billion for the purchase of isolators, circuit breakers and other maintenance equipment for the nation’s power sector. Minister of Power, Mr Abubakar D. Aliyu, said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said the approval also covers the purchase of sets of circuit breakers for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).“The second one is also a critical maintenance equipment. This one is for the procurement of one set of 132 kV chrome temporary circuit breakers, 16 sets of 33Kv ABB circuit breakers and 25 sets of 33Kv compound units, lightning arrestors for the transmission company of Nigeria.“This is also like the previous one, this one also is critical maintenance equipment, which we need to have on the ground in the store as backups immediately we have faulty ones, we quickly replace them, so that we can maintain service throughout.
“So, the circuit breakers as you may know are the same as the one you have in your house. Once there is a fault, it will trip off what we call the circuit breakers and if you want to stop the energy from going to the house you can as well clip it off by pushing a button. but this one is on a larger scale and dimension.“The dimension is large and the capacity also. So it is used on the grid. So, once there is a problem with the power national grid, the circuit breakers will automatically switch off that portion. The contract was approved, after the due processes, in the sum of N362,796,000 inclusive of 7.5 percent VAT with a delivery period of six months,” he said.
…approves N1.2 billion Nasarawa water project
Also the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N1.2 billion for emergency repairs of water supply facilities in Nasarawa state.Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of Wednesday’s meeting of the council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.He said the approval follows the need to fix water pipelines destroyed by floods in the state.“One other thing that also you need to know is the approval for a N1.2 billion Naira contract for the emergency rehabilitation of the Nasarawa Water Supply Scheme.
“Floods in the year 2000 had destroyed Nasarawa township, destroyed the waterworks and as a result, pipe born water is unavailable to the communities. And the whole water intake has been destroyed,” he said.
He said the federal government decided to step in because Nasarawa state government found it difficult to fix the facilities due to the level of destruction caused by the flood.“And in order to preserve public health and, of course, the difficulty of the state government in restoring the water supply scheme, the federal government has made this major approval which upon completion would be handed over to the Nasarawa state government for maintenance and upkeep,” he said.