Nigerian Government to sanction Chinese manufacturer of ‘sub-standard’ electricity transformer

The minister said investigation into the cause of the fire was still ongoing.

The Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo, says the Federal Government will sanction the Chinese company that manufactured the 150MVA transformer which caught fire at the Osogbo Transmission Centre recently.

Mr. Nebo said this in a statement issued by the ministry on Monday in Abuja.

He said the company would be punished if investigations into the fire incident showed that the product was sub-standard.

“The measure, when taken, will serve as a deterrent to those other manufacturers of fake and sub-standard products and equipment,’’ the statement quoted the minister as saying.

It said the minister, who was at the project site in Osogbo last weekend to assess the level of damage, said investigation to unravel the cause of the fire was still ongoing.

The statement, however, said the minister was “reliably informed’’ that the fire was likely to have been caused by installation failure.

It said this might have resulted from “sub-standard coils used in the transformer’’.

The statement said a new 150MVA transformer, originally procured for the expansion of power supply network in Osogbo, would be used to replace the burnt one.

It added that Mr. Nebo appealed to the communities where power supply had been disrupted as a result of the fire incident for understanding.

The statement said the minister assured them that full electricity supply would soon be restored to their area.

It said Mr. Nebo also commended the efforts of the fire-fighters who stopped the fire from consuming other transformers close to the burnt one.

The N 150MVA transformer owned by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) was gutted by fire on March 7.

(NAN)