Power probe: Nigerians which way to go?

Sola Oluwadare, Lagos - updated: Tuesday 25-03-2009

Dimeji Bankole, Speaker, House
of RepresentativesTHE last may not have been heard of the on going investigations into the factors that crippled the power sector of the country as the issue is already bringing the executive against the judiciary.

Observeras of the scenario became agitated, two weeks ago, when the Federal Government’s committee set up to investigate the alleged mismanagement of funds meant for the power projects came out with submission which was at variance with the position of the House of Representatives committee on the same issue.

The rowdy session which the house was thrown to last week, after two days of unsuccessful efforts to stage a debate on it, showed that the lawmakers actually have skeleton in their cupboard and need questions to answer.

It will be recalled that that the House of Representatives had, last year set up a panel led by Mr. Ndidi Elumelu to look into the disbursement of $16 billion earmarked for the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) under the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Senator Liyel Imoke, the present governor of Cross River State and the former governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, who served as Ministers of Power and Steel during Obasanjo’s administration, some contractors and consultants and the former president himself were invited to testify on how contracts were awarded and funds were disbursed.

The House panel had alleged that Agagu as a minister awarded contracts to 31 companies that were not registered with the Corporate Affairs of Commission (CAC), which the former governor, had denied.

Governor Liyel Imoke was also accused to have ‘overscoped’ certain amounts to be expended on the projects. The panel, among others, also compared the cost of the NIPP projects with similar projects in Pakistan where a 450 megawatts power project was said to cost $329 million far below what alleged was spent on the project, and concluded that the NIPP projects were inflated.

The former president Obasanjo who was also alleged to be part of the deal had last year turned down the house invitation to him to testify but simply sent his submission to them while Liyel Imoke, Olusegun Agagu and the design consultant, Lahmeyer International (LI) and other contractors had presented their sides to the house on the allegations.

But the reports submitted by the Federal Government’s committee led by the governor of Benue State, Mr. Gabriel Suswan to investigate the issue gave Senator Liyel Imoke a clean bill of health, stating that the major issues militating against successful implementation of NIPP include funding delays, logistics, wayleave, and staffing issues.

It was also revealed that certain money alleged to had been spent by Imoke were letters of credit (LOCs) established for procurement of foreign components and equipment as money collected by the contractor which were still stuck in the custodies some Nigerian commercial banks but which the house had not given the estimate.

The Federal Government committee in the report submitted to FEC stated that nothing had happened to the project funding except that only 20 per cent of the required staff strength had been engaged, there were still delays in release of funds, restriction of expertrates from going to the Niger Delta area by their countries had slowed down work and that inability to re-mobilise consultants was affecting the resumption of work on the NIPP projects.

In addition, the Federal Government committee, in the reports initialled by governor Suswan appealed to Federal Executive Council (FEC) to note that the scope of the NIPP was unprecedented in the annals of the history of Nigeria and should take steps to ensure that the challenges were addressed in order to avoid delay and deterioration of the past.

“The implementation of the comprehensive power sector in the country, and sustained funding of NIPP is required to achieve the set targets,” he reports stated.

Dr. Agagu had in a newspaper reports recently threatened to drag the probe panel to court should its reports contravene his submissions. He said “to the best of my knowledge, that house has not adopted report yet. That report has not been formally presented to the house. Nobody has been indicted.”

Also, governor Imoke had, during his defence before the House panel, noted that no single naira was mismanaged, saying completing the NIPP projects was the way forward.

According to a source close to the governor, “the fact that records show that a contract had been funded 100 per cent by advance payment and letter of credit did not mean that the contractor had collected 100 per cent payment. Thus, the conclusions of the house committee that consultants and contractors fraudulently collected payments and findings of overpayments to contractors had no factual basis and were misleading. They are founded on a wrong premise.”

The source revealed that most of the house committee’s conclusions and recommendations as contained in the report yet to be fully made public, did not reflect an objective assessment of the realities on ground. The presidency remained, at all times, dispose to an unbiased review of the NIPP projects to which we are prime stakeholders. Accountability and persecution were not yet interchangeable principles.

The source, who craved for anonymity, told the Tribune Energy that the funds could only be accessed by the offshore suppliers after meeting some given contractual conditions and milestones.

Such conditions, according to the source, included submission of factory acceptance test certificate for the materials and equipment being procured, submission of shipping documents, and certificate of site progress.

To the chagrin of Nigerians, the House came with 88 recommendations in its reports without proper signatures of the committee members. Even some members of the committee openly dissociated themselves from majority of the submissions in the reports with different versions.

This had shown that our legislators had turned this issue to an avenue to throw mud at perceived political enemies of which Imoke and those who worked with the former president Obasanjo have been allegedly fingered.