The Media
Rights Agenda (MRA) has named the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) as this
week’s inductee into the Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall of Shame for leaving
Nigerians in the dark over its operations and activities arising from its
flagrant disregard of several provision of the FOI Act, including its failure
to submit annual reports and disclose information proactively, among others,
reports ITRealms.
The TCN, ITRealms
gathered, manages the electricity transmission network in Nigeria and is one of
the 18 companies that emerged from the unbundling of the defunct Power Holding
Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in April 2004. It is a product of a merger of the
transmission and system operations parts of PHCN. It was
incorporated in November 2005 and issued a transmission license on July 1,
2006.
The TCN is currently fully owned and operated by the
Federal Government. It carries out activities which include electricity transmission, systems operation and
electricity trading as well as taking responsibility for evacuating electric
power generated by the electricity generating companies (GenCos) and wheeling
such power to the distribution companies (DisCos).
In a statement in Lagos, MRA’s Programme Manager in
charge of Digital Rights, Ms Eseohe Ojo, noted that as part of the reform
programme of the Federal Government, the TCN is to be reorganised and
restructured to improve its reliability and expand its capacity in the power
sector.”
She interpreted the proposed reorganization and
restructuring as evidence of a clear failure on the part of TCN to effectively
carry out its mandate and the Federal Government’s recognition of public
dissatisfaction with the company’s performance of its functions.
Ms Ojo accused the company of failing to use “the most
essential tool in its toolbox, which is the Freedom of Information Act, in
ensuring that Nigerians are well informed, updated and carried along in its
operations, businesses and activities, which might have resulted in public
understanding of its challenges and generated the necessary public sympathy for
it.”
According to her, despite the fact that the core
functions of the TCN ought to be guided by the principles of transparency,
accountability and integrity, among others, “it has chosen to operate in silence and secrecy, thereby depriving Nigerians of
the right to be informed while at the same time failing to deliver to them in
an efficient manner an essential public service.”
She noted that since the coming into force of the FOI
Act in 2011, the company had failed to submit a single annual report on its
implementation of the Act to the Attorney General of the Federation, thereby
violating section 29 (1) of the Act as well as the more detailed requirements
contained in the Guidelines for the Implementation of the FOI Act, issued by
the Attorney-General of the Federation in the exercise of his powers under the
Act.
Ms Ojo said the TCN had also contravened the section 2
(3)(d)(i) and (e)(iii) of the Act as it failed to proactively disclose
information relating to the receipt and expenditure of public or other funds of
the institution as well as information containing applications for any
contracts made by or between the company and another public institution or
private organization, which includes the foreign loans of $1.5 billion and $500
million that it received for its operations and contract processes.
She added that this action had already caused the
House of Representatives of the National Assembly to institute an investigation
into the violation by the TCN of the Constitution, the Fiscal Responsibility
Act, and the Public Procurement Act in October 2017.
Ms Ojo also cited as a further breach of the FOI Act
by the TCN its failure to publish on its website or on any other public
platform, the title and address of the appropriate officer to whom applications
for information under the Act should be made, as required by Section 2(3) (f)
of the Act, evidencing a clear lack of intention to provide members of the
public with information as it is obliged to do by the Act.
She said the TCN had apparently also not trained its
officials on the public’s right of access to information or records held by it
and for the effective implementation of the Act as required by Section 13 of
the Act.
Ms Ojo also accused the company of non-responsiveness
to requests for information made to it under the FOI Act and cited as an
example, requests made on several occasions by the Abuja-based non-governmental
organization, Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), for
information in the custody of the TCN, which were never granted or even
answered.
She said: “One should perhaps not be surprised by this
lack of responsiveness on the part of the TCN to requests for information as it
is apparent from its failure or refusal to designate an appropriate official to
whom such requests for information should be directed that it never intended to
respond to any such request for information, regardless of whatever the FOI Act
stipulates.”
Ms Ojo observed that although the TCN listed the names
and titles of its management team on its website, it, failed to disclose the
names, salaries, titles and dates of employment of all its employees, as
required by the FOI Act.
She also noted that the TCN has failed to list the
classes of records under its control in sufficient detail to facilitate the
exercise of the right to information under the Act as well as the manuals used
by its employees in administering or carrying out any of the programmes or
activities of the institution as required by Section 2 (3)(b) of the Act.
Launched in July 2017, the “FOI Hall of
Shame” draws attention to public officials and institutions undermining the
effectiveness of the Freedom of Information Act through their actions,
inactions, utterances and decisions.
Nonye Dom/GEE
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