Posted by By BUCHY ENYINNAYA, Asaba and James Ojo, Abuja on
The House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel yesterday expressed shock over the level of deceit and lack of patriotism exhibited by some contractors awarded projects in the energy and power sectors of the country, revealing that most of the contractors collected money and abandoned the contracts, without any commitment to executing the project.
The House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel yesterday expressed shock over the level of deceit and lack of patriotism exhibited by some contractors awarded projects in the energy and power sectors of the country, revealing that most of the contractors collected money and abandoned the contracts, without any commitment to executing the project.
The committee vowed to ensure that all those involved in the deals appear before the panel. It also expressed its determination to invite former President Olusegun Obasanjo to appear before the committee, if the need arose.
The committee which is probing the award of contracts in the sectors since 1999 also expressed sadness over their shocking findings and noted that in some cases, contracts were either phoney or money was collected for the contracts but were not executed
and said former president Olusegun Obasanjo may be invited to face the panel if need be .
Chairman of the committee, Honourable Ndudi Elumelu gave this indication when members of the committee yesterday paid a courtesy visited on Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan in Asaba.
Answering questions from newsmen, Elumelu said any body, including the former president who was remotely involved in the award of contracts must testify before the panel to enable Nigerians know how their money that ran into billions of Naira
was spent in the power sector in the past eight years without results. He called for prayers from Nigerians for members of the committee whom he said would step on toes of some powerful individuals in the society.
He further said the outcome of the probe would chat a positive direction for the energy sector the country. Specifically, he revealed that findings on the projects so far visited in the state, like the Sapele Power Plant project where the contractor, MARUBENI is alleged to have collected about N17 billion out of the about N18 billion contract sum without any work on ground is disheartening.
The chairman disclosed that the Agbor and Onicha-Ugbo substations in the Ika South and Aniocha North Local Government Areas of the state awarded to SERMATECH also suffers the same fate. He disclosed that the substations located in seven sites have uptill now, not had any of them kickstarted, even as a greater sum of the contract amount had allegedly been collected by the contractor. He assured the governor that by the time the panel submits its report, all projects that the contractors had collected money and abandoned would be completed and those that cannot go back, to site ,would be made to refund the money they had collected .
Responding, Uduaghan advised them to tread carefully, describing their task as a suicide mission. "You are bound to step on some powerful toes," he said . He
therefore prayed for God's protection for members of the committee, stressing that the panel's findings would go a long way to bringing the energy sector out of the woods, and move the country forward."