Senate Laments over N4.4tn Spent on Power Supply without Improvement
The Senate Monday expressed concerns that despite the sum of N4 .4 trillion spent by the federal government in the power sector in the last 21 years in form of intervention in the privatisation programme, electricity supply is yet to improve in the country.
The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly said out of the N4 .4 trillion, the sum of N1.7trillion was injected into the power sector in the past five years but without improvement in power supply.
According to the Senate Nigeria loses $29 billion annually as a result of irregular power supply.
President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan who on the occasion of the three day investigative hearing on “the power sector recovery plan and impact of COVID-19 pandemic “ organized by the Senate Committee on Power said the expectation of Nigerians was that after privatisation power supply will improve, but added that this has not been the case.
He said, “The purpose of privatisation, just to remind us, is not for government to wash away his hand, to run away from responsibilities. When you have privatisation, you have Share Purchase Agreement. This investigation should look at what has happened.
“What are the responsibilities and the obligations of the federal government in the Share Purchase Agreement. What is BPE (Bureau of Public Enterprises) supposed to do? And equally and very important, what are the successful investors who are given 11 Discos and six Gencos supposed to do and within which time framework.
“Government should not be giving free money. N1.8 trillion has been given to Discos maybe in their books. The actual money might have been given to the Gencos. N1.8 trillion is a huge amount of money. Is it part of the Share Purchase Agreement that we should be given this kind of money or what are we supposed to do as a government? What is our obligation?
“Government cannot afford to just spend money that you hardly understand why it is given and I will advise the Executive here, next time, if there will be any next time, to give such money, bring it to the National Assembly for approval. We want to be very critical on how funds are given to privatised enterprises. We expect that by now, our level of generation, transmission and distribution would have been far better.”
The Senate President called for a review of the privatisation exercise.
“If government cannot fulfill its obligations because it holds 40 per cent, let it divest so that we don’t hold this sector unnecessarily stagnant”.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Gabriel Suswam said “despite the trillions of Naira and billions of dollars interventions, over the years, the nation’s power generation output from 1999 till date, stands at about 3,500mega watts as against the nation’s installed capacity of about 13, 000MW” .
The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly said out of the N4 .4 trillion, the sum of N1.7trillion was injected into the power sector in the past five years but without improvement in power supply.
According to the Senate Nigeria loses $29 billion annually as a result of irregular power supply.
President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan who on the occasion of the three day investigative hearing on “the power sector recovery plan and impact of COVID-19 pandemic “ organized by the Senate Committee on Power said the expectation of Nigerians was that after privatisation power supply will improve, but added that this has not been the case.
He said, “The purpose of privatisation, just to remind us, is not for government to wash away his hand, to run away from responsibilities. When you have privatisation, you have Share Purchase Agreement. This investigation should look at what has happened.
“What are the responsibilities and the obligations of the federal government in the Share Purchase Agreement. What is BPE (Bureau of Public Enterprises) supposed to do? And equally and very important, what are the successful investors who are given 11 Discos and six Gencos supposed to do and within which time framework.
“Government should not be giving free money. N1.8 trillion has been given to Discos maybe in their books. The actual money might have been given to the Gencos. N1.8 trillion is a huge amount of money. Is it part of the Share Purchase Agreement that we should be given this kind of money or what are we supposed to do as a government? What is our obligation?
“Government cannot afford to just spend money that you hardly understand why it is given and I will advise the Executive here, next time, if there will be any next time, to give such money, bring it to the National Assembly for approval. We want to be very critical on how funds are given to privatised enterprises. We expect that by now, our level of generation, transmission and distribution would have been far better.”
The Senate President called for a review of the privatisation exercise.
“If government cannot fulfill its obligations because it holds 40 per cent, let it divest so that we don’t hold this sector unnecessarily stagnant”.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Gabriel Suswam said “despite the trillions of Naira and billions of dollars interventions, over the years, the nation’s power generation output from 1999 till date, stands at about 3,500mega watts as against the nation’s installed capacity of about 13, 000MW” .
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