The National Economic Council yesterday ordered a forensic audit of the operations of the electricity distribution companies (DisCos).
It approved two months extension for Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai-led ad-hoc committee on the review of the ownership structure of DisCos.
Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu told State House reporters that this was to allow the committee carry out forensic audit of all bank accounts of DisCos.
“One of those issues was the issue of forensic and to ascertain the level of investment by DisCos. You all know that the issue of privatization is still questionable. But nonetheless, the federal government and governors feel we should not lament, what we should do is to look for solution.
Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, while reacting to a question that sought to know whether the governors were in support of the reversal on Public Private Partnership arrangement on electricity investment over poor performance of the DisCos, said: “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.
“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’ve made no substantial investment and we’ll take it when we get all the solutions.”
Umahi dismissed the notion that the excess crude account had been depleted as untrue, saying $250m was an agreed investment by governors and federal government on National Sovereign Investment Authority which was doing very well.
“You also asked where is the other $4m, it was used in paying consultancy and services that would have caused the fund about $500m. It was renegotiated to $4m because some people went to court over certain transactions in NNPC and so federal government had to engage consultant to handle that. We would have paid the consultant five percent of the cost that they were seeking and it would have translated into $500m.
“So, if you add $250m plus $4m, you’ll get $254m and if you add $71m, you get $325m, we’re back to where we were. So, no money is missing.”
