Senators Use Lamps And Torches to Probe Power Sector After Power Failure at NASS

Yesterday, The senate was deliberating and probing the power sector when a power outage occured. The anger of the senators was evident as most of them were seen hurling curses at PHCN and accusing the executives of power distribution companies present of intentional sabotage.



 Power was cut at least twice within a period of six minutes between 2.20pm and 2.26pm. At the third outage at about 3.12 pm, the chairman of the committee conducting the probe, Abubakar Kyari could no longer hide his frustration.

 “Are you tired? Are you guys calling your people to do this?” he asked the executives of the power companies present at the probe. Things were to get even worst. Moments after he spoke two power outages followed at 3.26pm and 3.31 pm.

 At this point, the probe panel resorted to receiving presentations using lights from media cameras, torches and rechargeable lamps. Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, Mr. Benjamin Dikki, told the senate committee did not know how much it cost to privatise the country’s power plant and should be given time to present the exact amount.

 He said he needed to find out the cost of building the power plants. Dikki was responding to a question from a committee member who asked him to “tell Nigerians how much the power plants were sold because during Tuesday’s hearing, the committee was told $USD 8.23bn was what was spent on these plants prior to the privatisation.’’

 “I do not know how much the (power) plants were constructed. I will make available the documents later,” the BPE DG answered. Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali, had denied speculations that the Federal Government was planning a wholesale privatisation of the Transmission Company of Nigeria. He said, “I want to correct an impression, government has no plan to privatise TCN; what we are doing is to work out an arrangement so that the market will pay for services.”