From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has summoned the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) and 11 Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos), to appear before it to explain issues sorrounding the $321 million and N18.2 billion loans obtained for transmission, distribution interface lines and substation projects.
The PAC chairman, Bamidele Salam, who issued the summon yesterday, at an investigative hearing, said all the affected agencies are to appear before the committee on November 8.
Salam said there was petition before the committee alleging that funds, which were paid to the DisCos by the CBN on prompting of the Transmission Company of Nigeria( TCN) were not judiciously utilised. The lawmaker also directed the TCN to provide details of disbursement of the loans, procurement process, how many DisCos were involved, the stage of the projects and the structure of the repayment of the loans to the beneficiaries.
According to him, “Sometime in 2021 the then president Muhammadu Buhari, granted that certain funds be made available for the purpose of enhancing the capacity of our transmission and distribution lines to be able to have a more robust power sector intervention and these funds were made available for certain projects to the distribution companies.
“It is the concern of the petitioner that the fund have not been judiciously used and that the project ought to have been delivered by now upon which we caused a letter to be written to the Transmission Company of Nigeria which also sent in a response stating the status report of the project as well as the procedure for the implementation of that loan disbursement and execution of the project by the distribution companies.
“Our concern is to ensure that all our institutions work well in accordance with the law and in accordance with global best practices and to ensure money is judiciously utilised.”
The Managing Director, TCN, Sule Abdulaziz, who appeared before the Committee, had told the lawmakers that the funds were paid directly to the DisCos by the CBN to undertake the various projects.
He explained that there was a gap in the electricity sector and the distribution companies were complaining that the TCN was not giving them supply. Consequently, he noted that there was a need to invest in some projects so that the distribution companies would be able to distribute power to Nigerians.
“But it was observed that TCN does not have that amount to do those projects, so the FG involved the CBN to finance the projects. NERC being the regulator now is the one leading the exercise. TCN is just a beneficiary of the project. It was signed by the DisCos. In TCN there is a Project Monitoring Office that was set up to do this procurement, “ he stated.