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How $ 16bn was looted from Nigeria’s power sector fund
Chairman, House of Representatives' Committee on Power and Steel, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, gave a graphic account of how N 250 mm was
spent to build a bungalow to facilitate hurried ground breaking of the
moribund Mambila Power project in May last year during the twilight of
the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. This is even as the federal
lawmaker allegedly had death threats to his life by anonymous callers
asking him to halt the investigation or lose his life.
Similarly, Benue State governor Hon Gabriel Suswam said as a member of
the House of Representatives, he opposed the third term for Obasanjo
because of the huge amount committed to the power sector without
commensurate result.
Elumelu who spoke at the hearing about the $ 16 bn allegedly spent on
the power sector reform between 1999 and 2007, said that a German firm
also collected mobilization fee of N 369 mm for jobs not executed. The
contract was awarded to the firm even after it was blacklisted by the
World Bank.
Elumelu who warned that his committee would not spare any sacred cow in
a bid to recover the allegedly looted funds directed the German firm,
Lamelier to prepare to refund the money to federal government coffers.
Lamenting that the multi-billion naira Mambilla power plant has remained
a white elephant project in spite of the huge sum of money already
committed by the government, Elumelu stated that in a desperate bid to
ensure its commissioning before the tenure of the last administration
expired, a bungalow was hurriedly built at Gergu, about 25 km from the
Mambilla project site to host the event. He said former President
Olusegun Obasanjo and other top government functionaries were flown to
the area in a helicopter, apparently to shield the shoddy job at the
site from him.
Although the federal lawmaker did not give identity of those who built
the bungalow, he said the building cost about N 250 mm.
Alleging that even at the huge cost the building was still sub-standard,
Elumelu said that when members of his committee undertook a working
visit to Gergu, the building was already dilapidating.
"Gergu where they did the ground breaking ceremony is 25 km to Mambilla.
They just built a bungalow. They said they spent N 250 mm for the
bungalow which is already dilapidating. Why did they not do it in
Mambilla. The former president was flown there in an helicopter because
there are no access roads to the place. Lamelier has done nothing
despite the sum of N 369 mm it has collected and I believe they should
be thinking of refunding the money to the federal government. Fellow
Nigerians we are serious, very serious. We are not after anybody, we
just want to ensure that all the monies paid for jobs not done should be
refunded", he stated.
In his own presentation, Governor Suswam who had served as both Chairman
House Committees on Power and Steel as well as Appropriation before his
election as governor, said in a bid to convince Nigerians that something
had been done in the power sector when the last federal administration
embarked on indiscriminate commissioning of uncompleted projects. He
said Mambilla was such a project meant to deceive Nigerians that the
administration was committed to boosting public power supply.
Disclosing that the expenditure on the power sector reform runs into
trillions of naira, Suswam promised to submit a comprehensive list of
the budgeted amount to the panel.
Stating that the bulk of the money spent on the power sector reform
under the Obasanjo administration came from the excess crude account,
Suswam said Governors are requesting for a refund of their own share of
the money from the federal government since the projects were no longer
feasible.
Insisting that adequate funds were made available for the entire
projects, Suswam urged the panel to hold contractors who have been fully
paid responsible for jobs not executed. He said where the contractors
claimed they have not been paid, the governor enjoined the panel to
invite the helmsmen under the Obasanjo administration and force them to
cough up the money as adequate provisions had been made.
In his own submission Taraba State governor Dambaba Suntir said they
were surprised to discover that after the ground breaking of the
Mambilla Power Plant in April last year, the job was abandoned. He said
preliminary investigation by his administration revealed that there was
a feud between the contractor who was awarded the contract originally
and the new contractor who was supposed to take over the job.
Minister of State for Energy, Mrs Fatima Ibrahim said the minister has
constituted a task force to recover monies from contractors who
defaulted in executing the jobs awarded to them. She admitted that a
total of N 435,115,676,963.03 or an equivalent of $ 3.7 bn was released
to the ministry from the budget between 1999 and 2007, while government
also secured $ 46 bn loans for some of the projects executed in the
sector.
