It just hmmm makes my heart heavvvvvvvvvyyyyyy!!!!!!
From Punch newspaper: March 13, 2008:
highlight of following article (NEPA)
The PHCN’s Coordinator, Abuja Liaison Unit, Alhaji Shuaibu Maigida, laboured for hours to defend the organisation, but the PHCN’s submissions and those of the MDs of the stations failed to tally, especially in relation to the contracts quoted above.
Reps order PHCN to refund phoney contract payments
Shocking revelations about phoney contracts allegedly awarded by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria under the guise of improving the power situation in the country emerged in Abuja on Wednesday.
Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole
At the second day of the public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel on the $16bn spent on the power sector between 1999 and 2007, it was discovered that the PHCN paid for contracts that could not be verified.
The PHCN also sharply disagreed with the Minister of Energy, incharge of power, Mrs. Balaraba Ibrahim, over the actual amount released to the utility company between 1999 and 2007.
According to the findings of the panel, there were about nine of such questionable contracts totaling $142m.
“Those awarded in naira were valued at about N2.1bn, while several others awarded in the Japanese yen accounted for ¥1.1bn.
In the euro category, contracts awarded totalled 2.1m euros.
The contracts, said to have been awarded for the rehabilitation of the power generation stations in Kainji, Egbin, Ughelli, and Afam, were paid for, but there was no proof of the job done.
While the PHCN, in its report to the panel on how it spent its budgetary allocations between 1999 and 2007, quoted the contracts as part of the work done, the managing directors of the power stations said they had no evidence to show that the jobs were done.
Members of the public watched in amazement as one MD after another simply replied, “I’m not aware,” “not to my knowledge,” “Mr. Chairman, I don’t know,” as the Chairman of the panel, Mr. Ndudi Elumelu, requested their confirmation of the figures submitted by the PHCN’s headquarters in Abuja.
Making his presentation to the committee, the Coordinator of the PHCN, Alhaji Shuaibu Megida, disputed the claim made by the minister when she appeared before the committee on Tuesday. The minister had said that the PHCN had received $3.2bn from the ministry.
He insisted that the utility company only received $2.5bn and generated $4.07bn, which it expended on generation, transmission and distribution as well as on recurring expenditures such as payment of salaries and repaying the loans used to finance Afam 5 and Delta 1, 2, which was never included in the budget.
Making his presentation, the Chief Executive Officer, Afam Power plant, Mr. M.C. Nwapa, said, “Between 1999 and 2007, only two major rehabilitation of units 17 and 18 were done, contrary to unit 15 submitted by the PHCN.”
He added that ADB, the original contractor, was paid $20m to rehabilitate unit 17 and $15m to rehabilitate unit 18.
“Unit 15 as submitted by the PHCN is wrong. The agreement between the PHCN and the ADB showed a total of $35m for the two years for the rehabilitation of units 17 and 18.”
Nwapa submission contradicted the claim by the PHCN that it spent $8.2m, prompting the House of Reps to order that the PHCN should refund the money to the Federal Government.
The MD of Kainji Hydro Electric Power Plc, Mr. I.C. Okoli, told the panel that the IG.11 Unit of the plant had a fault in 2002, resulting in the loss of about 100MW of energy.
He said the PHCN awarded a contract for its rehabilitation in the sum of $39.7m.
He added that after that work was completed, “there has not been any other plant rehabilitation to my knowledge.”
The PHCN, in its submission, claimed that it spent another N207.9m in 2002 to rehabilitate the same plant.
Having established that the contract did not exist, Elumelu noted, “In respect of Kainji, the PHCN should be prepared to refund N207.9m to the Federal Government.”
Ughelli Power Station turned out to be the place where non-existent contracts were found.
The MD of the station, Mr. Ferdinand Eze, said that he was not aware of about eight contracts allegedly awarded by the PHCN to rehabilitate the station.
They were valued at $54m; $18.2m; $15m; $24m; $7.5m; $11.9m; £2.1m and $400,000. respectively.
On his part, the MD Egbin Power Station, Mr. Jonathan Ogbonna, told the panel that he was not aware of various contracts valued at $2.3m, N1.9bn, ¥1.1bn and N610m.
The PHCN’s Coordinator, Abuja Liaison Unit, Alhaji Shuaibu Maigida, laboured for hours to defend the organisation, but the PHCN’s submissions and those of the MDs of the stations failed to tally, especially in relation to the contracts quoted above.
Meanwhile, the Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwabo, and the PHCN on the one hand and the Central Bank on Nigeria on the other, gave conflicting accounts of the exact money released to the PHCN between 1999 and 2007.
While the CBN quoted $4.1bn, Dankwabo and the PHCN said it was $3.7bn, showing a difference of about $1.6bn.
Also, the panel observed that some of the firms that won contracts awarded by the TCN might have dropped the names of prominent Nigerians in a bid to win the jobs.
The Corporate Affairs Commission, according to Elumelu, had raised doubts over the authenticity of some of firms.
The Chief Executive Officer of the TCN, Mr. G. Osakwe, claimed that one of them, ENEGO, had former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, as a director.
In a related development, the Action Congress on Wednesday called on President Umaru Yar‘Adua to order a probe of the country‘s power sector expenditure between 1999 and 2007.
The party said following the revelation that President Olusegun Obasanjo administration awarded a N370m contract to a blacklisted German firm, it was imperative that a full-scale investigation was conducted.
In a statement issued in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the AC said the revelation during ongoing hearing by the House of Representatives‘ Committee on Power and Steel, provided a litmus test for Yar‘Adua administration‘s fight against corruption.
The party also concluded that the revelation was just a tip of the iceberg in what it called ”the cloudy deals in the country‘s critical power sector under Obasanjo.”
The party said, ”We say this because, according to President Yar‘Adua himself, a total of $10bn was spent on the power sector during the Obasanjo years without a commensurate improvement in the sector.
”It is now clear, from this and other revelations, that the man who presented himself up to the world as Mr. Clean is nothing but a sanctimonious bully who hunted innocent people under the guise of fighting corruption and ensuring due process.
”Despite his anti-corruption posturing, however, we in the AC have always believed that Obasanjo is anything but Mr. Clean, and that in the fullness of time, he will eventually get his comeuppance.”
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