The House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel says it has tracked down electricity contracts worth $12.93 billion awarded from the $16 billion voted for the sector during the reign of Olusegun Obasanjo as President.
Committee Chairman, Ndudi Godwin Elumelu, vowed at the weekend to trace the balance $3.07 billion, and disclosed that former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (now World Bank Managing Director), would testify at the hearing, which begins on Tuesday.
He made the disclosure in Abuja when he received a delegation from Iran’s power sector.
Okonjo-Iweala is expected to provide details of the foreign loan component of the expenditure.
Elumelu said preliminary investigation has shown how $12.93 billion was spent, but the committee is determined to unveil what happened to the balance $3.07 billion.
According to him, $10 million was traced to the Energy Ministry; $3.2 billion (Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN); $500 million (Rural Electrification Agency, REA); $1.62 billion (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Joint Venture); and $3.07 billion (Nigeria Integrated Power Project, NIPP).
Elumelu said $4.06 billion came from the internally generated revenue of the PHCN, and information obtained from the Energy Ministry showed that the balance $3.07 billion is “the difference in what was approved in the 2007 budget, but was not released.
“We are now asking questions about what really happened. We want to look at the contracts; who did the jobs. Did they actually do what they were supposed to do?
“For the NNPC Joint Venture, we want to know how it was also spent. Did they build power plants then forwarded the cost to the Federal Government or did they just make the money available for the contracts to be executed?”
Okonjo-Iweala is expected to appear before the committee on Saturday alongside officials of the NNPC and those of oil multinationals.
“We have invited (her) to appear before us with details of the loan. How was the money disbursed. We want to see bank details of the funds disbursement.
“We also believe that the PHCN generated more money than was credited to it. We want to establish all these facts. So, we have invited all the contractors that handled jobs during the period in question.
“Let me warn that there will be no sacred cow. We will ensure that we do our best to satisfy the yearnings of Nigerians. It is a huge task, we know, but we are determined to succeed.”
The delegation from Iran came to seek ways of partnering with the government to revamp Nigeria’s power sector, he explained.
The group proposed to rehabilitate the four plants in Kainji at $30 million each, to be completed in six months; which Elumelu hopes would be cost effective if the proposal scales through.
Each plant generates 150 megawatts (mw) and, when rehabilitated, would all add a total 600 mw to the national grid.
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