Abdulsalami, Imoke named in N19bn power contract scandal

Idowu Samuel, Abuja - 14.03.2008

INVESTIGATIONS by the House of Representatives into the $16 billion spent by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration on Thursday came up with the revelation that a firm, Enego Nigerian Limited, failed to execute a contract worth N19,429,901,010.00 after collecting mobilisation fee.

The contract was part of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) contract awarded during the administration of former President Obasanjo with Liyel Imoke as the Minister of Power and Steel approving the contract.

Former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, is the Chairman of the firm which won the contract to build a power sub-station of 330kv at New Haven, Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom State, according to one of its managers, Mr. Dejan Gerotic, an Austrian.

According to the Austrian who testified before the panel headed by the House Committee.

Chairman on Power and Steel, Honourable Ndudi Elumelu, Enego had collected the sum of N13,324,161,235,52. as part payment for the contract.

The panel was, however, treated to conflicting figures of the contract sum paid to Enego firm as the chairman of NIPP, Mr. J A Olotu, said the original worth of the contract in foreign currency was 73,357,816,090,00 euro, whereas the initial figure quoted by the firm was 72,686,136,024.00 euro.

According to the NIPP boss, the contract was supposed to have been completed in 2009, but that only 20 per cent of the work had been done when the contractor left the site in 2007.

A consulting firm appointed to monitor the contract, headed by Mr. Thomas Colenko, who said he had never been to the site of the work, was paid N501,348,252 out of N720,159,940 approved by the Federal Government for the supervision of the contract.

Mr. Colenko told the probe panel that his firm abandoned the supervisory assignment on the failure of the Federal Government to pay it the balance of N218 million.

It was revealed that the omissions in the contract were committed under the former Minister of Power and Steel, Liyel Imoke, who is now the governor of Cross River state.

The governor is to appear before the panel today to testify on what went wrong about the power projects for which more than $13 billion was voted and released by the Federal Government during his time as the Minister of Power and Steel.

While shedding light on the problems of the non-execution of contracts by the foreign firms that won them under the NIPP, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power (Power Holding Department), Alhaji Abdullahi Aliyu, told the panel that the past government was fond of paying mobilisation fees to contractors while refusing to pay the supervisors approved for the execution of the contracts.

He admitted that most of the contracts under the NIPP projects had been experiencing the problem of non-execution by the contractors, even as the government appeared to have been at a loss on how to bring the erring contractors to book.

He said he had set up different task forces to monitor about 300 of the contracts under NIPP and with mandate that the task forces should fish out the erring contractors with a view to meting out appropriate punishment to them.

According to him, his office would be receiving reports from the task forces set up to monitor all the projects by the NIPP by the end of next week after which he said the next line of action would be taken.

In a related development, a South African firm, Pivot, was reported to have failed to mobilise to site for execution of contract for building of a Double Circuit Transmission Line at Enugu New Haven, 9th Mile, Enugu State. The contract was worth N3.8 billion.

All the stakeholders connected with the contract testified that the South African firm did not mobilise to the site as they all claimed one after the other that they did not see anything when they visited the supposed site. The contractor had collected N1.096.929.116 for the contract.