The Managing Director (MD), Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET), Nnaemeka Ewelukwa, has disclosed that there is no timeline for having a stable electricity supply in the country.
He said this while answering questions from members of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance during the 2022 budget defence by the agency on Tuesday.
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Ewelukwa however said ongoing interventions in the power sector by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Siemens/Presidential Power Sector reform initiative and other projects will address the power challenges in the long run.
He said presently, Nigeria generates 7,600 megawatts (MW) of electricity, but only 4,000MW to 5,000MW is being made available for consumption due to distribution infrastructure challenges.
However, the House Committee discovered that despite the release of funds, NBET has failed to finalise the procurement processes for contracts in its 2021 budget.
The Chairman of the committee, James Faleke (APC, Lagos), and other members lamented that with just two months to the end of the financial year, the company has been keeping released funds idle without putting them into the projects they were meant for.
Deputy chairman of the committee, Sa’idu Musa Abdullahi (APC, Niger), queried the agency’s failure to execute its contracts piecemeal as funds are released but kept them idle leading to stagnation and accumulation of procurement processes on the contracts.
Responding, Ewelukwa said the delay in getting approvals, particularly Certificate of No Objection, from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and other procurement processes were the major causes of the delay.
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