Power failure disrupts Senate probe on power
The ongoing Senate investigative hearing on power was marred on Wednesday by consistent power failure at the venue of the hearing as the Senate Committee vowed to also investigate motives behind the power failure during the hearing.
The investigative hearing, which started around 11am as scheduled by the Senate Adhoc Committee on Power ,witnessed power failure at intervals eight times.
This started at 2pm when the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali, was making a submission on behalf of the various electricity companies.
Apart from Igali, other critical stakeholders of the sector caught in the power outage disappointment while making presentations were the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Benjamin Ezreal Dikki; the Chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, Dr. Sam Amadi; and some of the Managing Directors of the electricity Distribution Companies.
Although, there was no official statement on why there was persistent power failure during the hearing, but the Chairman of the Adhoc Committee on Power, Senator Abubakar Kyari, promised that the committee would look into issue of power failure at the hearing.
Kyari said: “The power outages experienced here today further underscores the relevance of this committee at this critical time but we shall investigate whether they are deliberate or not.”
Some of the operators who made presentations were forced to use their phone and video camera lights to make their presentations.
Earlier, Kyari had said the actual investment in power sector since 1999 was more than N2.7 trillion reported in the media, adding that it was difficult for the committee to know the actual investment until all stakeholders concluded their presentations.
Kyari explained that the amount in the public domain came from only the Ministry of Power and the National Integrated Power Project.
According to him, the total figure of expenditure would emerge after all the agencies would have given their testimonies.
Our earlier story: A power outage at the National Assembly on Wednesday crippled the Senate Committee hearing on the power sector.
The sitting of the Committee could not hold as scheduled with the outage.
The President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, had empaneled an ad hoc committee to probe the sector.
This is because of the fact that despite the trillions of naira voted for the sector in the years past, the power satiation in the country only got worse.