The much-trumpeted Mambila Power Project aimed at improving power generation and supply in Nigeria may have suffered a severe setback after Federal lawmakers in the Senate on Monday noticed that there was no allocation for the project in the 2021 Budget.
The Senate discovered the omission as the Minister of Power, Mamman Saleh appeared for the defence of his Ministry’s budgetary allocation of N198 billion for 2021.
Mambila hydropower project is a 3.0GW hydroelectric facility on the Dingo River in Kakara Village in Taraba State.
The project comes with a contract terms of 85% investment from China while the remaining 15% is expected to be supplied by Nigeria.
It was therefore shocking to the federal lawmakers despite how the current administration had celebrated the idea of bringing to life the Mambila Power Project which was originally conceived in 1972; that there was no mention or allocation for the 15% counterpart funding in 2021.
The Mambila hydropower project which is expected to begin operations in 2030 will be Nigeria’s biggest power plant; producing approximately 4.7 billion Kwh of electricity a year and built at a cost of roughly $5.8bn.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in his budget speech in October emphasized the importance of the project to the Joint session of the National Assembly.
All of that seems to have come to nothing after the lawmakers uncovered that there was no provision for it in the country’s budget.
First to raise concern was Senator Danjuma Goje (APC) representing Gombe South; who bluntly told the minister that he was not sure the project was on his priority list.
The strongest anger however came from Senator, Shuaibu Lau (PDP), representing Taraba North who told the Senate panel that there was nothing on ground in Mambila to show for the project.
He said the whole talk about Mambila Power Project is a waste of time; pointing that based on the current status of the project; he doubts if “it will even see the light of the day”.
“When will this project take off. As we speak there is noo road to Mambila at the moment”.
“Even to transport personnel there is no road. There is no project and this project will not see the light of the day”, he said.
The Senator also drew attention of the panel to a lingering legal battle that was yet to be resolved for there to be any meaningful progress concerning the Mambila hydropower project.
In his contribution, Senator James Manager advised that Nigeria needs to show greater commitment to the project especially as regards the contract it had entered into with China.
In his response, the Minister was not able to explain to the lawmakers why there was no allocation to kick start the implementation of the Mambila hydropower project.
The Minister said he met with President who according to him was not interested in the “blackmail” going on regarding the project.
It was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Gabriel Suswam, who offered a more plausible excuse for the omission of the Mambila hydropower project from the 2021; but quickly explaining that he expects the executive to come forward with allocation.
Earlier the lawmakers listened with disbelief as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Sule Abdulaziz told them that out of the N165.8 bn it required for the implementation of capital projects in 2020; the Ministry came up with an evelope of only a meagre sum of N4 billion.
Unable to reconcile the poor funding with the record of successes churned out by the Minister in the Power sector; Senator Goje asked if there was any hope for Nigeria to achieve steady power supply.
The TCN boss replied in affirmation; dropping the buck squarely on the table of the lawmakers to use their power of apropriation to come to the rescue.
His response did not sit well with Senator Goje who said it was evident that it will take Nigeria about 41 years to achieve steady power supply.
His counterpart from Kebbi State, Adamu Aliero expressed similar sentiment that the hope of steady power supply in Nigeria looks dashed.
( Editor: Omor Bazuaye)
