2014 Budget: N1.8 billion for Ghost Power Project by GEJ

Premium Times - SaharaTV:

President Goodluck Jonathan is asking the National Assembly to appropriate about N1.8 billion this year to help connect his home state of Bayelsa, to the national electricity grid, but this request suggests that federal officials only want to pocket the money.

PREMIUM TIMES investigations into the proposed project reveal that President Jonathan is asking money for projects that have been completed seven years ago, and that were all fully paid for in 2006 when he was the governor of the state.

In the 2014 Federal budget recently presented by the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to the National Assembly for consideration and approval, the government lists as priority, the need to connect the state to the national electricity transmission network, but this shocking blunder is drawing attention to the absence of project monitoring and evaluation principles in policy making under the current administration, and the shabbiness that attends to budget preparation.

When contacted, the Special Adviser to the President on Power, Beks Dagogo-Jack, could not explain how the provision found its way into the budget, but claimed the issue might involve some complicated technical explanations only the bureaucrats at the Federal Ministry of Power could make.

Investigations reveal that such provisions, that many federal crime investigators are familiar with, are some of the several fraudulent financial requests smuggled into budgets to steal public funds.

The Special Adviser to Bayelsa State governor on Power, Olice Kemenanabo, on Tuesday, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that Bayelsa State was indeed linked to the national grid more than eight years ago.

However, the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, insisted Friday night the N1.8billion request is not fraudulent.
“It is true contract connecting Yenagoa to the national grid was awarded in 2006,” Mr. Okupe said in response to a PREMIUM TIMES enquiry. “It is a 2x40MVA station connecting only Yenagoa. That voltage is far too small to cater for the needs of the state.

“The present contract is to further upgrade what is on ground and extend services to other parts of the state. It will be wrong and ignorant to say the 2014 provision is fake!”

But officials at the Federal Ministry of Power, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES but requested anonymity for fear of official reprisal, insisted that there is no official documentation for the project, and that it is merely a “graft allocation.”

The officials said they were “stunned and amused at the claim from the presidency which is obviously an afterthought.”

“It is not true that the Bayelsa transmission line needs an upgrade. If it’s an upgrade, why didn’t they say so in the budget? Why was it presented as a totally new project?” the official queried.

The project, titled, “Connection of Bayelsa to national grid”, under the allocation of the Federal Ministry of Energy (power), was described as a new project with reference number MOP1001637.

The budget did not say the requested N1.8billion was needed for an upgrade of an existing facility.