Contractors May Refund Government's Money with Interest

Contractors who handled the controversial power plants initiated by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo's but failed to perform satisfactorily may be forced to refund the money and pay interest on them.

This is among punitive measures the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel probing the alleged $16 billion spent on the energy sector between 1999 and 2007 may recommend to the Federal Government.

Aside the representatives' probe, the Federal Government has intensified its efforts to bail out the energy sector from its near moribund state.

Its current focus is on the controversial National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), where a global firm hired by the government to assess seven of the power plants and recommend ways to make functional has submitted its report.

After inspecting the Papalanto Power Plant in Ogun State yesterday, the panel's chairman, Mr. Godwin Ndudi Elumelu, said the contractors who performed poorly would be made to refund the money and pay interest on them.

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After many problems, much payment, and little results, the power sector of Nigeria did not do very well last year. Hopefully, the contracters will follow through and refund money, which might mitigate some of the damage and lack of progress in the power sector.

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President Raises Panel to Check Energy Crisis

PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday constituted an 11-member committee to give practical effect to his administration's pledge to end the country's
long-running energy crisis within the shortest possible time. He charged the committee to deliver to the country a total additional 6,000 megawatts generation, transmission and distribution capacity within the next 18 months.

The committee was also mandated to add to the national grid an extra 11,000 megawatts of power generation capacity by 2011.

This would be done through diverse sources while the 6,000 additional megawatts target would be met through the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP).

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This article addresses President Umaru Yar'Adua's recent creation of an eleven person committee who is charged with helping the President and his administration in their desire to relieve the energy crisis in Nigeria. Yar'Adua believes the there must be a partnership between the government and the private sector that is attempting to ease the energy crisis. The committee is aimed at analyzing the infrastructure of the power sector, the funding of the new initiatives, and providing a reliable investor for the power sector, among other priorities. This decision shows the goals that Yar'Adua's administration to make Nigeria the best it can be by making each individual aspect of the government and the country as a whole better.

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