ABUJA – Federal Government has expended about N2.7 trillion on the country’s power sector in the last sixteen years, spanning the regimes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goidluck Jonathan.
Out of the sum, N1.5 trillion was appropriated to the Federal Ministry of Power between 1999 and 2015, while N1.6 trillion was approved for the Nigeria Integrated Power Project (NIPP) in the same period.
The revelation was made yesterday, when the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Power received key stakeholders in the power sector in an interactive session over the deteriorating condition of the power sector over the years.
This is even as the probe committee queried the rationale for investments made in the power sector within the period and requested that the Federal Ministry of Power forward to them, details of all the translations.
The lawmakers also demanded audited account of the ministry, showing all investments and expenditures as well as details of supplementary budgets.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Amb. Godknows Igali, told the Committee that out of over N1.5trn that was appropriated to the ministry between 1999 and 2015, only the sum of N948bn was actually released.
He said, “Since 1999, the sum appropriated is 1,565,638,385,735 (trillion Naira) and actual release was 948,212,192,810 (billion naira) including all the value chain and all agencies in the power sector.
“What was released under Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO) from 2009 to 2013 under subsidy is N155,089,910,730 (billion) to cushion the shock of the slash in tariff.
He noted that the Nigeria Integrated Power Project (NIPP) also received $8.3 billion dollars (N1,660,000,000 trn) from the Excess Crude Account for 10 power plants which had been completed.
Amb Igali further summed up the amount spent by the government between 1999 and 2015 to N2.7 trillion which, according to him was inadequate investment in the power sector, considering the sector’s pivotal role in national development.
The Permanent Secretary insisted that despite all the money spent by government, a lot more investment was still needed to stabilize the power sector.
He regretted that while developed countries of the world have very functional and stable power sector, the developing and underdeveloped nations were yet grappling with power problems.
“Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) requested N147bn in 2011 but it was allocated only N45bn out of which only N30bn was released; that has been the story,” he regretted.
Igali explained that the power sector required huge investment as components were usually very expensive to procure; stressing, “you need about N200 million to get a single generating plant”.
Going down memory lane, the Permanent Secretary told the Senate panel that out of 79 generating units that existed in Nigeria, only 19 were functional, generating only 1,750 megawatts as at the time democracy was restored in 1999.
He recalled that the only investment that was made in the decade before the advent of this democracy was the construction of Shiroro Power Plant in 1990.
“When democracy came, the government inherited the sector that had not made capital investment for a long time and not a single engineer was recruited in 19 years.
Despite the effort at investment by government, we have not been able to invest in a consistent manner in the power sector. Investment from government and private sector must go up gradually but consistently as fluctuation will not help in our economic development.
For over a hundred years until 2005 when the Act was promulgated, power was in the hands of the government,” he continued.
Over 10 key players appeared before the committee including the NIPP, Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN), Electricity Liability Management Company (ELMC) and Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) among others.
In his remark, Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC Borno North) directed that the team from the power ministry to report back with all supplementary budgets it had received so far.
“We want to see cooperation between all agencies in the power ministry and know if there is any overlap that acts as a constraint in the function of the sector so we can address it”, he stressed.
He however, commiserated with the Power Ministry over the loss of some of its staff who were restoring critical power infrastructures across the country.
“We will give you notice on the other issues that we have with the power sector; we shall continue our interaction tomorrow, with the Gencos, Discos and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The stakeholders subsequently accepted to go back and further articulate the details of the information concerning the operations of the industry within the period under review and report back to the Ad-hoc Committee for further action.
