Abuja — The House of Representatives yesterday said 34 unregistered companies got contracts worth N6.2 billion from the Ministry of Power and Steel under the leadership of Dr. Olusegun Agagu, who is now the Governor of Ondo State.

This revelation came on the heels of claims by the Governor of Cross River State and immediate past Minister of Power, Senator Liyel Imoke, that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved all the power projects during his tenure, insisting that all jobs went through Due Process and received Due Process certificates.

An official of the Ministry of Power and Steel had said last week that the contracts did not go through the bureaucracy as they were awarded by the Minister and the Presidency.

The House Committee on Power and Steel probing the expenditure on power between 2000 and 2007 said a group called National Watch had gone to court to compel the House to disclose the names of the companies listed as the beneficiaries of the contracts.

It gave the names as Special Projects, Matdol Zumo, Trakis, Aqua Combined, Apko International, Loomash, Aktra, Charly B Ceramic, Alfa DDL, Tee-Unique, Suchu Chase, Sassy Fund, Unihead Nigeria limited, Riveroacks, Danelec, Pauwels, Feldene, network, Ikelomu group, Bristosin, Ernesco Galv, NTTC, Space Master, Eternity, Tajkay, Elektrak, International Merchants, Krisob, Bangasa, Aolat Nigeria Limited, and Chris Ejik International Limited.

The House confirmed the non-registration of the companies through the Corporate Affairs Commission in a letter signed by Dominic O. Inagyan, a Deputy Manager (Public Relations) in the Commission.

It read: "We wish to inform you that there is no evidence in our system to show that the following underlisted companies are registered. However, it will be appreciated if additional information including the registration numbers of the above companies is forwarded to the commission to enable us carry out further search on them."

Imoke, who appeared yesterday morning before the Committee, explained that "the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) was conceptualised in 2004. It was conceptualised that it should be done near the gas source. We are the sixth largest producers of gas but we don't have enough gas to fire our stations.

"All the gas discovered in this country have been committed by the oil companies.

"They are powerful. For the next 25 years, all the gas in Nigeria have been sold and there is no gas to solve our domestic needs. They make much money. Even if we put the NIPP on top of the gas plants, we will still won't have gas.

"They were not designed for the Niger Delta region but to solve the problem of power. The location of power does not disturb the place it is delivered, because the power plant is built and evacuated to other areas. They were located near the source of gas.

"We have one national grid in Nigeria and unfortunately for us it is not complete. Because we have not been able to complete the national grid. So we had the objective of completing it and create a robust national grid."

The Cross River governor in his presentation and answers to questions put to him by the lawmakers which lasted over two hours pointed out that "all monies paid out to contractors were safeguarded by bank bonds and performance bonds and further protection to the client was also built into the contracts including penalties for contractor induced delays in project execution".

The governor stated that "the total expenditure on the power sector from 1999 to 2007 is approximately US $6 billion of which rural electrification gulped US$455 million, PHCN US $2.25 billion and the NIPP US$3 billion.

"Direct implementation of power projects from the Ministry of Power and Steel, for example, solar, small and mini hydro, consultancies, accounted for the balance.

"The NIPP accounts for approximately US$3 billion of this. It should be recognised that this significant amount of money still remains in escrow accounts with the CBN and /or tied down to specific Letters of Credit that will not allow for its release without the contractors having reached certain certifiable project milestones."

He defended the advance payments given to the contractors explaining that "advance payments that may have been given to any contractor are covered by bank bonds and so the risk of exposure to the nation is fully mitigated".

Nigeria, Imoke said, will not see the benefits of the NIPP expenditure until all the components parts are commissioned.

"This may be the reason that questions are being asked as to why after such huge investments, that there has been no seeming commensurate improvement in the power situation," he said.

Agagu, on his own part, insisted that "the power situation leaves much to be desired but it is not true to say nothing has been achieved. The Federal Government has not invested enough or done enough to bring in investment as done in other countries. Privatisation should be looked into.

"In terms of actual power generated, we got to 4000mw. In terms of actual power injected into the system, we got to 3600mw, because you cannot transmit every unit generated. There will be technical loss," he said.

On Papalanto, Omotosho and Gereku, he said "they have been completed but are not contributing anything to the national grid. They were to be completed in 18 months in 2005 if we pursued things the way they ought to. This is 2008, yet they have not been completed. Gas available can only serve two of the eight gas turbines in Papalanto. We are short-changing ourselves. We should clean up immediately. Each of the plants would cost $150million. We have no reason not to complete the gas pipeline that would take may be $2m. If we do the right thing, we will have 1000mw of new electricity."

Agagu said somebody must be held accountable for not making enough money available to the power sector.

On the alleged wastages recorded under him, Agagu told the committee: "I have not on my own carried out an audit on this. If at the end of the day that is your verdict, I don't have any problems with that. We need to avoid generalisations. It is possible some money has been misappropriated. There are various ways to find out if it is fraudulent. EFCC, ICPC are all there to do their job."

On the 34 unregistered companies, Agagu said: "It is possible. This is how companies get jobs when tenders are advertised. The minister is not a member of the tenders' board. The tenders' board recommends and I approve. No minister would have the time to look into the registration of companies. I don't think any minister would be dutiful enough to do that. There are technical people who do that. The bureaucracy does that. Our bureaucracy should be looked into. Even in season of crisis the bureaucracy drives government and drives it well."

The Central Bank Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, in his own testimony, told the Committee that during the period under review, the sum of N422.2bn was paid out by the CBN in local currency while the dollar component came to a total of $4.2bn

"I need to explain something. The CBN acts as bankers to the Federal Government. The duty of CBN to the FG is not too different from the job of the commercial banks. If you write a cheque you know why you have written the cheque.

"In this case, when we receive the mandate we receive the purpose. When we receive such, we send it back to the Accountant General of the Federation and then he reconfirms and we get back to the Minister.

"On the difference we paid only what I told you. There could be other payments that were not paid by the CBN but by the commercial banks for other contracts."

On what has been drawn on the LC and what is left with the CBN, Soludo who apologised for not appearing before now, explained that "what has not been actually expended is the interest on the amount of money and the money is for the government, that is the interest."

On the unregistered companies that were paid by the banks which were under the supervision of the CBN, Soludo said: "I can't go outside the ambits of the bank. There is the issue of Know Your Customers which we all have been hammering. Again, it is the anti-money laundering Act and it falls under the law."

On Excess Crude Account, he told the House that "there is still some contestation on the fund which belongs to the three tiers of government. If you ask me, if such spending has to be undertaken, I will say the NIPP is a good candidate for it, because the bulk of it is externalised and projects are externalised instead of the one that would pump money into the economy".

While throwing more light on the power sector, Imoke told the legislators that: "I was drafted into the Technical Board in early 2000.The country before then was in darkness for six days because there was no light in the country in March 2000. It was the lowest ebb in our power sector and the President set up the committee. I pray that we don't go back to that again.

"I was given the assignment to wind down the activities of OMPADEC and moved on with the technical team to improve the power generation.

"The approach was to repair dilapidated machines. There were 79 generating units in NEPA but only 19 were working.

"By the time we left 44 units were working and connected to the national grid.

Shiroro was the last built in 1987 and since then the Nigeria economy has grown by more than 50 per cent and we have still not realised the importance to the power sector.

"We had two approaches, one was rehabilitation. In July of 2001, Nigeria generated 2600mw we celebrated it. A lot of what we call power generation is obsolete.

"Our power stations are all old. There is no new power station. Egbin was completed around 23 years ago, Delta Power Station 23, Ugheli 20, Kainji 40 years ago and Jebba is about 30 years old.

"In the case of NEPA they did not overhaul. They allowed it to get down. The system did not keep the maintenance schedule. We did not make provision for the economy that was growing.

"For us the challenge was to rehabilitate the generation from 1500mw to 4000mw. The record of the PHCN will show you what was achieved

"Afam 1, 2, 3 and 4 had zero capacity. On paper it had 976. But when we resumed it generated zero. By the time we left we had put up the repairs of Afam 5. It was delivering and we also rehabilitated the fifth unit. I need to do that so that the issue of money wasted will be put in a better perspective.

"Delta Power station was built in the 60s. Some were even constructed in the 50s and one was obsolete and could not be rehabilitated. We rehabilitated Delta 2 and 3 to the national grid.

"Kainji had suffered lack of repairs and we had a runaway unit. In November 2000, due to the age of the station and one of the units ran away. The turbine went under."

Meanwhile, former Minister of Finance and later Foreign Affairs, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said yesterday that she was ready to respond to questions of the Committee.

But she still maintained she was yet to receive any invitation to appear before the committee.

A statement signed by Media Adviser to Okonjo-Iweala, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, said the former minister, who is currently a Managing Director of the World Bank, made this clear in a letter sent to the Committee by her lawyer, Mr Etigwe Uwa of Streamsowers and Kohn Chambers.

According to Nwabuikwu, she was at present leading a World Bank delegation to South Asia.

The House Committee on Power had threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on Okonjo-Iweala for refusing to honour its invitation to answer questions on expenditure on power during former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo's administration. The Chairman, House Committee on Power, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, had claimed the committee invited Okonjo-Iweala twice to come and testify before it. But she had denied receiving any official invitation from the House.

Nwabuikwu said Okonjo-Iweala "has neither received any summons nor has her attention been drawn to any summons to appear before the House Committee on Power in relation to the public hearings".

Expressing her regret that she would be unable to appear before the House Committee yesterday because of the official assignment to India and Bangladesh, she expressed her willingness to respond to questions at any time agreed with the Committee.