Mrs Fatima Lawan Muhtar is currently the Company Secretary and Legal Adviser (Chief Counsel) of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), winner of Abuja’s Most Outstanding Under 50 Public Servant for Public Policy 2021. She has cognate experience in negotiation, sourcing and allocation of funds for large-scale transmission infrastructure assets. She coordinates a team of lawyers and other professionals to provide the Legal and Financial framework to structure concessionary loans for transmission infrastructure expansion in line with TCN vision and strategic goals. In addition to her role in transmission infrastructure development, she also ensures that transmission assets are operated in line with extant regulatory codes and statues. She has developed the skill sets needed to build trusting, long term relationships through developing rapport and honest communication in the power infrastructural development space.
Mrs. Muhtar has a proven track record of providing expert legal, regulatory and compliance advice to executive management and the board on critical investments and infrastructure, in her work with the Infrastructure Concession and Regulation Commission (ICRC) and TCN Mrs. Muhtar was also at various times with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Debt Management Office. Her time at the Debt Management Office exposed her to high level negotiation of external debt, debt restructuring and debt settlement renegotiations.
Mrs. Muhtar is accomplished in project management, Leadership, team collaboration. She is equally innovative in solving problems while adhering to company values and policies procedures and regulatory guidelines. Her stint in policy and financial structuring across national and international institutions spans close to two decades as served as part of the team who developed the framework for alternative financing structure (SUKUK) at Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), sourcing, negotiating and allocating concessionary loans from World Bank, French Development Agency (AFD) and African Development Bank (AFDB), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) For transmission of infrastructure plan of TCN. She displays strong expertise in legal and implementation framework of power and infrastructure projects, contribution to the development of the first power sector agreements like the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), Transmission Use of Service Agreement (TUoS), Grid Connection Agreement (GCA) currently used in the sector, contributed extensively to the dynamic evolution of the Nigeria Power Sector through participation in various inter-governmental committees on diverse power sector topics all aimed at developing the sector and provision of legal advice to TCN on renegotiated contracts that saved the company approximately $83 million in foreign components and N30 billion in local components.