The National Economic Council (NEC) Thursday granted Nasir El-Rufai-led Ad-hoc Committee on Power additional two months to carry out forensic audit of the accounts of Distribution Companies (DisCos) following their poor investment in the sector.
The ad-hoc committee had last month disclosed that the federal government had spent about N1.7 trillion on electricity interventions to DisCos in the last three years without tangible results.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the monthly NEC meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Deputy Governor of Edo State, Mr Philip Shaibu, said governors were also asked to submit details of state governments’ investment in the DisCos from 2013 to 2020.
“NEC also received an update on the review of the status of ownership structure of electricity power distributing companies. The Kaduna State governor briefed NEC on the progress so far made and responses so far received from general public.
“He (El-Rufai) also told NEC that they will be carrying out forensic audit of all bank accounts of DisCos and also state governments to provide details of their investment of DisCos.
“The committee also sought approval of NEC for additional time to complete the report in two months and also the statement to file report of investments in DisCos.
“One of the reasons the committee asked for additional two months was to deal with two other issues that arose during NEC. And one of those issues was the issue of forensic and to ascertain the level of investment by DisCos.
“The issue or privatization is still questionable but nonetheless, the federal government and governors feel we should not lament, what we should do is look for solution because if government lament the populace will definitely lose hope. So they need the additional two months so that when they are reporting to council it will be wholistic so that one council decision will be made that will deal with the issue of the DisCos,” he said.Also speaking, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state governors had established that the DisCos made no significant investment in the power sector since 2013.
“The first observation is that they (DisCos) have not done any substantial investment so far. Of course nobody is happy with the DisCos performance and we have a committee chaired by the governor of Kaduna state and they have done very beautiful job.
“They have placed advertisements in about five newspapers and have asked the general public to give them information on performance of these DisCos and also investments made by private individuals and private sectors.“And also the governors are requested before the end of March to also submit all their investments from 2013 to date, so that we will get it all together and were directed by the electricity authority to stamp our claims.“I think the federal government is trying to take the bull by the horn by trying to find out what investments these DisCos made towards this privatization. The first suspicion is that they have made no substantial investment and we will take it when we get all the solutions,” he said.
The governor also told journalists that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, briefed NEC on the repayment of the N614 billion budget support facility that the federal government gave to some states.
He said the minister informed NEC that N152 million is being deducted from the allocation of the affected states monthly. The governor said the minister gave a summary of the balances in the three major aacount of the country as at February 24, 202o, saying the the Excess Crude Account had $71.8 billion, the Stabilisation Account had N34.1 billion and the Natural Resources Development Account had N101.8 billion.