Owen Omogiafo, Group Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Group, revealed a determined pursuit of increasing available power capacity to 2,000 megawatts by year-end.
Speaking in an Arise News interview on August 21, Omogiafo acknowledged the previous challenges with gas and transmission but highlighted the impressive improvement witnessed in Transcorp’s power business in the first half of 2023.
- “Transcorp has an installed generation capacity of nearly 2000MW, and in the first half of the year, we focused greatly on improving our mechanical available capacity and we took our capacity to about 900MW.
- “There were still some challenges with gas and transmission, but notwithstanding that, we saw a great improvement in our power business.
- “Going by the strategy we are working with now, by year-end, we will have about 1,200MW of available capacity.”
On the AEDC stake acquisition
Omogiafo said that Transcorp is part of a consortium that has acquired the 60% Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) stake.
According to her, the rationale behind the acquisition is that Nigeria is on a recovery path and the power sector is poised to drive that recovery as no industry or sector can operate without power.
She said:
- “In 2013, when the initial privatization of the sector happened, Transcorp and others went in, the narrative was we are not generating enough power to meet our needs. Transcorp Group, being a patient investor, has done well in the generating space in the last ten years.
- “As we moved on, we saw that the problem was shifting and not just about power generation but was about getting the power to the end-user. That is what led us and other investors to say let’s see how we can take what has been built by the generating companies down there.
- “That is what has led the Transcorp-led consortium to the AEDC acquisition, and we are confident that we can fix it. People want reliable power and today with the rising cost of petrol and diesel, people are finding out that we can’t afford to be running our generators to sustain businesses.
- “That is why we are leveraging upon the discipline and competence that we have as turnaround gurus, we will work with the other investors to turn around Abuja Disco so that it can serve the catchment areas that it covers and perhaps in doing such, industrialization, urbanization will grow.
Backstory
Last week, Nairametrics reported that a group of investors led by Transcorp Power Limited acquired a 60% stake in Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).
Following the acquisition, Christopher Ezeafulukwe, the current MD/CEO of Transcorp Power Limited, will take on the role of Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) at AEDC in a bid to revitalize the distribution company.
The regions to benefit from the revitalization are the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa states.
What you should know
For Half Year 2023, Transcorp Group reported N82.1 billion revenue, operating income at N29.9 billion, operating expenses at N15.9 billion and pre-tax profit at N18.5 billion.
Electricity was discovered around 1700, about 140 years ago the electric bulb was developed. Since then every nation with focus chased it knowing this is what drives development. In our case our leaders keep thinking oo ‘give them power they will grow their purchasing power and will no longer bow to us’. What explanation will you give to any sane mind, while explaining why we can’t invest and get electricity across every home.