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Finance Minister under fire over ‘unknown’ N147bn annual budget in power sector

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Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, has been summoned before the Senate Committee on Power regarding the N147 billion capital project of the Ministry of Power.

The committee lamented that the amount has been included in the budget annually with no explanation.

Senator Gabriel Suswam, the chairman of the committee, stated, during plenary on Wednesday, that the committee was unable to explain how the money for the international projects in the power sector was being used when he invited the Minister to testify during the budget defense of the Ministry of Power.

Suswam said, “The actual capital budget of the Ministry of power for the 2023 is N44 billion while N147 billion is meant for bilateral and multilateral projects.

“We can’t explain how they are expended. You can’t lay your hand on the projects, and we cannot oversight it. The Ministry of Power does not know about it.

READ ALSO:Zainab Ahmed reveals reason Buhari withdrew $35.6m from Excess Crude Account

“We are inviting the Minister of Finance to come and explain to us. The money has been put in the budget year in, year out without specifying the purpose.”

The Federal Government has allocated around N806 billion for various power projects in the 2022 budget, despite President Muhammadu Buhari‘s harsh criticism of the power sector’s subpar performance.

The N806 billion power sector budget/intervention comes at a time stakeholders have criticized the Federal Government’s ongoing assistance for privatised businesses, claiming that such a move was inimical to the principles of privatization.

Some of the projects as highlighted in the 2022 budget included: N1 billion for rural electrification access programme in federal universities; N220.5 billion for multilateral and bilateral funded projects(Zungeru, NEP, Abuja power feeding scheme, transmission access, among others).

Others are N800 million for the distribution expansion programme projects to utilise the stranded power from the grid, N114 billion funding (inclusive of multilateral loans) to the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) for the completion of renewable energy interventions for rural electrification projects nationwide, N303 million for construction of 215MW LPFO/Gas Power Station, Kaduna and N470billion for Kashambilla transmission.

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