The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday summoned the 11 Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) and the Central Bank of Nigeria over $321 million and N18.2 billion in loans for the accelerated transmission distribution interface, lines and substation projects.
The Chairman of the PAC, Bamidele Salam, disclosed this when Engr Sule Abdulaziz, the Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), appeared before the committee.
The lawmakers demanded the DisCos and CBN to appear before the Committee on November 8th, 2023.
Salam explained that their summon was a sequel to a petition on the lack of judicious use of the funds, which were paid to the DisCos by the CBN at the prompting of the TCN.
PAC Chairman told the TCN to provide details of the disbursement of the loans, the procurement process, how many DisCos were involved, the stage of the projects, and the structure of the repayment of the loans to the beneficiaries of the loan.
“Sometime in 2021, the then president Muhammadu Buhari granted that certain funds be made available for enhancing the capacity of our transmission and distribution lines to have a more robust power sector intervention, and these funds were made available for certain projects to the distribution companies.
“It is the concern of the petitioner that the fund has not been judiciously used and that the project ought to have been delivered by now, upon which we caused a letter to be written to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, which also sent in a response stating the status report of the project as well as the procedure for the implementation of that loan disbursement and execution of the project by the distribution companies.
“Our concern is to ensure that all our institutions work well following the law and follow global best practices and to ensure money is judiciously utilized”, he added.
Abdulaziz, on his part, explained that there was a gap in the electricity sector, and the distribution companies were complaining that the TCN was not giving them supply, noting that there was a need to invest in some projects so that the distribution companies would be able to distribute light to Nigerians.
