The Senate has resolved to seek an escape route out of the Azura Power Plant deal signed in 2013, which would cost Nigeria $1.2 billion in its foreign reserve if it decides to exit the pull out call agreement option.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Gabriel Suswam, while presenting the report of its Committee, informed the Senators about the Azura Power Plant agreement.
According to Suswam, the agreement signed by the Federal Government will cost Nigeria $1.2 billion if it pulls out of the contract.
He added that $1.2 billion would be pulled out immediately from the nation’s foreign reserve.
Nigeria is obligated to pay between $30 million and $33 million monthly to Azura for power generated, even if not “dispatched” — transmitted through the national grid — by the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
Disturbed by the various agreements signed by the Federal Government on power, the Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan, called for all the agreements to be looked at critically.
Lawan said: “We insisted on seeing some of the agreement signed.
“Let us get all the agreements for power privatisation and insist on that.
“It is not possible to have electricity with current arrangements we have in Nigeria.”