Abuja – The Senate on Thursday humbled Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, by sending him packing at a committee sitting where the minister was to defend the budget of his ministry.
The minister was asked to go back because he didn’t have with him necessary documents to defend the budget of the Power Ministry as he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development, and Metallurgy.
He was asked to go back in order to put his acts together and return for the budget defence on Monday.
The committee, headed by Enyinnaya Abaribe has raised eyebrow over the allocation of N10 billion in the 2018 budget for provision of solar power projects in nine Federal Government owned universities in the country.
The committee wondered why the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) planned to spend a whopping N10 billion to provide solar street light for nine universities.
The REA Managing Director, Damilola Ogunbiyi, had in her defence of the 2018 budget of the agency listed ‘Rural Electrification Access Programme in Federal Universities’ with a cost profile of N10,148,146, 829.00, as one of the projects of the agency for 2018 fiscal year.
The N10 billion planned expenditure was not acceptable to members of the committee, especially when the power sector had been privatised.
The REA boss told the committee that they were working in nine federal universities to upgrade electricity supply in the institutions.
A member of the committee, Suleiman Hunkuyi, demanded the list of universities involved in the projects.
Abaribe also recalled that the committee requested for the list of the benefiting institutions.
Ogunbiyi named the University of Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, and Bayero University, Kano, as some of the federal institutions to benefit from solar power installation.
Vice Chairman of the committee, Buka Mustapher, insisted that the details of the power solution projects in universities must be disclosed as well as details of “who is paying for the installations when the power sector had been privatised.”
The REA boss said that it was the responsibility of the Federal Government to provide power in the rural areas.
She added that most of the universities were located in rural areas.
She, however, did not define “rural areas” as demanded by the committee.
Another member of the committee, Mohammed Hassan, said the committee could not understand why the agency was spending a huge amount of money to provide solar power in universities when rural communities for which the agency was created were left in darkness.
Abaribe noted that if the agency had N10 billion to play around with, there should have been a better way to manage the fund.
The Abia South senator said the committee should be told who was paying for the project in disregard of the privatisation of the power sector.
The members of the committee also demanded to know why the agency’s completed projects appeared to be lopsided.
They particularly said the South-South geopolitical zone had over 30 completed projects while other zones had far below 30 completed projects.
Ogunbiyi explained that it depended on the nature, cost, and variation of the projects.
She said contractors handling projects in the Northern part of the country refused to go back to their projects until the variation of the contracts was carried out.
However, the REA boss was saved further embarrassment when it was pointed out that even the South-West geo-political zone where the MD hailed from had a low number of completed projects.
source: independent.ng
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