Senate to probe Nigerian govt’s N1.8trn intervention in power sector

The Senate said on Thursday it would launch a probe into the N1.8 trillion Federal Government interventions in the power sector since the privatization of the industry in 2012.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Gabriel Suswam, who stated this at a meeting with members of the Committee in Abuja, said a three-day hearing on the matter would begin next week.

The meeting was on Power Sector Recovery Plan and the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the upper legislative chamber had a motion on the floor where the committee was mandated to investigate comprehensively the power sector especially in areas related to the intervention.

The ex-Benue State governor disclosed that the committee would investigate all interventions in the sector since the privatization of the industry with a view to ascertaining the adequacy of such interventions and their desired impact.

He said: “We are looking at the intervention and whether corporate governance had been introduced since privatization because the expectation is that the sector will become efficient, but unfortunately, that is not the case.

“You know that the federal government had over the years intervened at various times with different sums: N701 billion, N600 billion and this year there has been N380 billion and N213 billion.

“All of these funds were federal government interventions in the power sector with the intention and hope that the power sector will become efficient and Nigerians will have access to electricity.

“Unfortunately, despite these huge amounts of funds that have been expended, the result in what we see today is that the performance is below expectations.”

He, however, noted that the investigation would not be punitive, but intended to identify the reasons for inefficiency and under-performance in terms of unstable and inadequate electricity supply in the sector despite the huge financial interventions by the government.