Chineme Okafor in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari, has approved the appointment of Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, as the substantive Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The fresh appointment would see Mohammed manage the affairs of TCN for a period of four years in a substantive capacity and no longer on an interim basis.
THISDAY yesterday gathered in Abuja that Mohammed received the letter of his appointment on Monday, and had since resumed work after the initial one year interim management deal he signed with the government expired earlier in February.
First appointed the Interim Managing Director of TCN in February 2017 for a period of one year based on his secondment from the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mohammed was initially opposed by the workers of the TCN through their in-house union.
The unions had questioned the choice of the government’s appointment of a head for the transmission company from outside following the expiration of the three year management contract it signed with Canadian power firm, Manitoba Hydro International (MHI), and expectations that the TCN staff who deputised MHI’s staff would take over, but the government stood its ground claiming it chose Mohammed to revive and reposition the operations of TCN.
However, in a letter written to Mohammed by the unions shortly after his first one year appointment expired and which THISDAY saw, they apologised to him for fighting him in the first place and lauded his achievements in the one year he worked as TCN’s Interim Managing Director.
