Reps blame worsening power supply on executive

The House of Representatives, on Monday, asked Nigerians to hold the executive arm of government and not the legislature responsible for the worsening power situation in the country.


Making electricity available to the majority of Nigerians is one of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s Seven-Point Agenda.

Speaking at the sixth National Roundtable for Good Governance organised by the Faculty Board of Initiatives, a group in the House, the Speaker, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, said that in the last one year, the legislature had assisted the executive in exposing the decay in the power sector.

Bankole noted that one of the steps taken by the House was the investigation into the $16bn that the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo allegedly spent on the power sector between 1999 and 2008.

The speaker who was represented by the Chip Whip of the House, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, explained that the investigation was not intended to stop the executive from finding solutions to the power situation but to guide it in making further decisions.

He added that the legislature approved N67bn for power projects in the 2008 budget as a mark of support for the executive.

He said, “The House of Representatives decided on its own to embark on the power probe to unravel what has led to the failure, we did not stop the executive from carrying out its functions or further action on power projects.

“We can’t take responsibility for the power situation as it is today. The onus of providing steady power supply for the people of this country lies within the framework of the executive.

“We only have the responsibility of over-sighting what the executive is saying.

“N67bn was provided in 2008 to boost power supply. If the executive fails to deliver on its promises, you hold them responsible.”

The House is expected to debate the Ndudi Elumelu -led power probe report on Wednesday but it is still unclear whether the lawmakers will endorse the recommendations.

Influential personalities, including former political office-holders and sitting office-holders, were indicted by the report, which Elumelu laid before the House on October 9, 2008.

In one of the recommendations, the panel called for further investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission into the alleged roles played by the personalities in electricity contracts awarded during the Obasanjo tenure.

On the 2009 budget, Ihedioha acknowledged that the N700bn deficit in it called for concern and the urgency for Nigeria to diversify its sources of revenue in the face of crashing crude oil prices.

He said, “We are really in difficult times as the oil, which is the main stay of the economy, is now on the abyss.

“The threat in the Niger Delta is bringing production below the targets of the 2009 budget, and I think we really need a special miracle to make the budget work.”

The Dean of the Initiatives (Head), Mr. Eseme Eyiboh, had said that the topic of the roundtable, “Agricultural Development in Nigeria and the Challenges of Food Security” was selected to draw attention to the need to boost agricultural productivity in the country.

He noted that in 2005 around 750 million people in 70 countries including Nigeria were under threat from food insecurity.