OBJ Aided Chinese Firm To Loot N116b

Idowu Samuel and Bola Badmus, Abuja - 15.03.2008

AS part of its excesses in the award of contracts for National Integrated Power Project, the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded a contract sum worth N116 billion to two Chinese companies without bothering to monitor the process of execution.

The contracts involved were for Power Plant Projects at Papalanto in Ogun State and Omotosho Power Station in Ondo State. The assessment of the two contracts by the NIPP were put at almost zero level execution.

One of the Chinese companies, CEPCO, was awarded the contract for the Papalanto Power Station for N58,477,350,000 and was indeed overpaid to the tune of N437 million, where as the company was never challenged to execute the contract within a specified time frame.

The other Chinese company took up the contract for the building of Omotosho Power Station for the sum of N58 billion and equally did not measure up to 10 per cent performance as stated by the Managing Director of NIPP, Mr A Olotu.

An enraged Chairman of the House of Representatives Panel probing the misappro-priation of the sum of $13.28 billion reportedly sunk into the power sector between 1999 and 2007 had to summon the chairmen of the two Chinese companies, who were said to be in China.

He had refused to allow representatives of the companies to testify before his probe panel on account that the huge amount of the contracts necessitated that only the chairmen who signed for them could shed light on why the processes of execution were stalled.

Meanwhile, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fasola, who also appeared before the probe panel lamented what he called the unlawful deduction of the sum of N9 billion by the federal government from the statutory allocations due to his state.

Fasola made this known in his briefing to the House on the predicament by the government of Lagos State with its attempt to generate electricity through Independent Power Project (IPP).

According to him, Lagos State, while appreciating the enormity of the problem by the federal government to generate sufficient electricity for Nigeria, took the initiative of engaging the private sector for the purpose of generating electricity for Lagos through IPP.

The government of Lagos, he said, brought in an AES for that purpose and was able to generate about 250 megawatts of electricity, whereas the government was able to mobilise the major industries in the state for the purchase of the megawatts being generated.

He said rather than for the Power Holding of Nigeria to appreciate the initiative by Lagos State by offering support, it failed to dedicate the power being generated to Lagos and all the same decided to be deducting a sum of N225 million from the statutory allocations of the state to make up for the price differentials in the private power generating project.

The amount being deducted from the Lagos State account from 2001 till date, according to Fasola, has increased to N9billion.

Fasola, however, urged the National Assembly to encourage the executive arm of government to involve more private sector participation in the power sector in Nigeria, as he also canvassed for acceleration of Privatisation