The lower chamber of the National Assembly, the House of Representatives, has made a resolution to carry out investigations on the awarded contracts and payments which the federal government made to contractors in a bid to revive the power sector.
According to SAHARA REPORTERS, the motion was adopted unanimously by the House plenary on Thursday, with the $16 billion which was spent by the Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration between 1999 and 2007, one of the cases that would be touched upon by the probe.
The probe will as well cover the Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan administrations as well as that of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The motion which was moved by Hon. Sada Soli, was entitled, ‘Need to review government expenditure on the power sector to ensure sustenance of the power reform programme in Nigeria.’
The lawmakers then made a resolve to set up an ad hoc committee to “carry out a comprehensive investigative hearing on how much money was spent on the power sector reform programme over the years without commensurate results and report back within six weeks for further legislative action”.
Hon. Soli as he moved the motion, said that, it has been noted by the House that the Electric Power Sector Reform Act which was aimed at taking out the ineffectiveness of the sector so that it could be managed more efficiently.
Hon. Soli said that, the House had earlier set up an investigative hearing in 2008 to address the issues of the alleged spending of about $16bn on the power sector. He further recalled that the plan was to get the country running at 40, 000 Mega Watts by the year 2020, based on the investments but that such expectations have not been experienced in the country even up till this moment.
He also pointed out that the President, Muhammdu Buhari as lamented over the fact that such massive amount of hard currency was spent on the sector without any tangible results being witnessed in the generation, transmission, as well as distribution of power supply in the country.
In his words: “The House acknowledges the lamentation by the President (Muhammadu Buhari) to the effect that such huge sums of billions of dollars could be spent without commensurate results in the generation, transmission, and distribution of power supply in the country.”
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