Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan Spent N2.74trn On Power In 16 Years

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The Senate was yesterday told that the Federal Government invested a total of N2.74 trillion in Nigeria’s power sector over the last 16 years (1999 to date).

The investments were made during the regimes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo; his successor, late President Umaru Yar’Adua, and President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, and the Managing Director, Niger Delta Power Holding Company, NDPHC, Mr. James Olotu, disclosed this before a Senate Ad-hoc Committee probing the power sector from 1999 till date.

Olotu revealed that contrary to popular belief, the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) which gulped about $8.23 billion or N1.64 trillion were actually being funded from the Excess Crude Account, rather than from ministerial provisions.

Ambassador Igali also told the Senate that former military Heads of state, who ruled the country from the overthrow of former President Shehu Shagari, up to 1999, when democracy was reinstituted, crippled the power sector.

“When democracy came, the government inherited the sector that had not made capital investment for a long time and not a single engineer was recruited in 19 years. Despite the effort at investment by government, we have not been able to invest in a consistent manner in the power sector.

“Investment from government and the private sector must go up gradually but consistently, as fluctuation will not help our economic development. I do know that despite government’s effort at funding the power sector, the nation continues to experience epileptic power supply. However, it takes time to stabilise,” Igali said.

He equally recalled that when Obasanjo came to power in 1999, electricity generation capacity was a mere 1,750 MW, noting that in view of the volume of investment required, the Ministry had to bring in the private sector which resulted into a reasonable improvement from what it used to be.

He gave a breakdown of the appropriation and money released from 1999 to 2015 as follows:
1999 – N11.206 billion appropriated, N6.698billion released;
2000 – N59.064billion appropriated, N49,785 billion released;
2001 – N103. 397 billion appropriated, N70.927 billion released;
2002 – N54.647billion appropriated, N41.196 billion released;
2003 – N55.583billion appropriated, N5.207billion released;
2004 – N54.647billion appropriated, N54. 647billion released;
2005 – N90.283 billion appropriated, N71.889 billion released;
2006 – N74.308 billion appropriated, N74. 3 billion released;
2007 – N100 billion appropriated, N99.8 billion released;
2008 – N156 billion appropriated, N112 billion released;
2009 – N89. 5 billion appropriated, N87billion released;
2010 – N172 billion appropriated, N70 billion released;
2011 – N125 billion appropriated, N61 billion released;
2012 – N197. 9 billion appropriated, N53. 5billion released;
2013- N146 billion appropriated, N49 billion released;
2014 – N69.8 billion appropriated, N48 billion released; and,
2015 – N5. 240billion appropriated, no money released yet.

According to Igali, about N155 billion intervention fund was released to the Ministry for the Multi-Year Tariff Order, MYTO, to cushion the effects of the shortfalls in expenditure for the power sector between 2009 and 2013.

The funds were given for a period of five years. A breakdown of the interventions funds are as follows:
2009 – N30.8 billion;
2010 -N43.2 billion;
2011 – N37.0 billion;
2012 – N11.5 billion; and,
2013 – N32.6 billion.