Power probe

Obasanjo and the power probe

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Power ans Steel, Mr. Ndudi Elumelu decided to probe the power sector as the epileptic power supply became so bad despite the billions of Naira expended on that sector during Obasanjo's regime. The probe actually started on tht 11th of March 2008 and several key players in Obasanjo's government were invited to come and testify. Obasanjo's men who had fed fat on the billions allocated to the sectors are all multi billionaires now while the former two Ministers are Governors of their respective States in Nigeria. While they and their family members are enjoying the money that fell on their lap, millions of Nigerians are impoverished and falling sick every second from total darkness and heat. Businesses have shut down due to high price of generating electricity to meet demands and meet up production.
Since the probe of the nation's power sector began, shocking revelations have been emerging. The investigation has revealed the corruption of the erstwhile government of Obasanjo the so called custodian of uprightnees and accountability.
Shocking too was on-the-spot assessment of the power plants in the country. Most of the power plants had nothing on the ground to show that work had begun or the commitment of the contractors. Most of the contractors have been paid mobilisation Fees and some have not even started work on the proposed Sites. One of the contractors has been paid almost 4B Naira but no work had commenced at the site. Another contractor in Enugu in the South East Zone of Nigeria, had collected part of the contract money but had only cleared the site of weeds, bought a generator and erected two blocks of flats for the Engineers. Beyond these nothing else was done at the project site. The contractor complained about late treatment of documents submitted to the authorities for processing. The contractor claimed he had spent N501m on soil, engineering designs, civil works and other preliminary activities including the clearing of the site and the generator. Unbelievable! How much is paid a labourer per day? How many labourers did he engaged and for how many days?. Apparently only one percent of the job had been done and the Contractor had spent N501m from the contract of N1.2bn. What is left is not up to 60 percent of the contract sum to complete the project. Is the contractor thinking of applying for a review upward of the Contract sum?
Time will tell.