Senators Unveil N16.3b Budget Padding In Fashola’s Power Ministry

*As Fashola budget N1 billion for utility vehicles, files

Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development, and Metallurgy has unveiled   N16.3 billion padding in the Ministry of Power 2017 budget injected into breakdown of the Ministry of power budget. 

During the budget defence the Minister of State for Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Mustapha Baba Shahuru, and the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Frank Edozie were unable to defend the budget before the committee. 

The issues raised by the lawmakers were padding, duplication of budget, etc. 

In the Ministry budget  it was discovered that N2.8 billion for construction of 215mw LPFO/Gas power station,  compensation of 98 communities for crop/ economic trees affected by the constitution of Zungeru 700mw hydro project N500 million, Zungeru Hydropower project (basic amenities 11) classroom N438 million, internal road network N430 million.

Also in the document,  counterpart funding for 3020mwambilla hydropower N8.5 billion,  settlement of outstanding liability N4 billion,  monitoring and Evaluation and verification of power sector performance wide N500 million and detailed engineering design,  project management and supervision of the 3050mw Mambilla hydroelectric power project N512 million. 

In addition,  N120 million, N480 million and N288 million, respectively, were budgeted for purchase of utility vehicles and N100 million  for transfer and management of office files and documents.

Trouble started when Sen. Clifford Ordia, who represents Edo Central Senatorial District, queried the duplication of purchase of utility vehicles, captured in three separate pages of the budget document.

He also instructed the Minister and the Permanent Secretary to explain how the Ministry plans to spend N100 million to transfer files, despite another huge provision for ICT.

“I need to understand this thing. Look at the different pages. You earmarked N120 million, N288 million and N480 million for the purchase of vehicles. I do not understand. Are these vehicles different? If you add up this figure, it gives you about N888 million.

“You also said that you want to spend N100 million on transfer of office files. How do you intend to do that? The people in your office, what have they been doing?

“I can also see from your estimates here that you captured another item for ICT, different from the N100 million for transfer of files. You need to explain these things,” Ordia said.

Senators were angry with absence of Fashola and infuriated over the duplication of projects by the Ministry, lamented that the ministry keep on asking money for same project year in,  year out. 

In his own submission, Senator Bukar Mustapha called the attention of the committee to Mambilla project which money was borrowed to finance but appear again in the 2018 budget of the Ministry. 

According to him,  the National Assembly has approved counterpart finding for Mambilla project in 2017 budget,  it appears again in 2018, from the first item to the last item in the budget there several questions needed to be answered. 

Also in his contribution, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa wondered how could Ministry of Power making budget for primary healthcare  center and building of Primary schools adding that Ministry lacks capacity to embark on such project. 

According to him, ministry of power should not be talking about primary health care center , primary school.  There should be synergy among the ministry.  You have capacity for primary health care and primary school. 

He added “we don’t need to consider this budget because it is not your responsibility to build primary health care center and primary school. “

In his own remarks,  the chairman of the committee, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe revealed that the 2017 budget (capital) of the Ministry only recorded 18 per cent performance.

He added that nobody is satisfied with vague items in this budget saying that the Ministry should appear before the committee until the necessary information are provided. 

“We will take it that the 2017 budget was abysmally low at only 18 per cent performance. This is unacceptable and I need to put it on record,” Abaribe said.

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