NIGERIA stands the risk of losing foreign assistance and funds for reviving its power sector unless it addresses the cases of alleged fraud in the contracts for the power projects. This possibility is emanating from the queries sent by the foreign financial institutions to the Nigerian government and local contractors, against the backdrop of stalled progress on electricity generation in Nigeria.
The government of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo had launched the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), for the revival of the power sector and had awarded different contracts worth more than N10 billion between 2006 and 2007.
Most of the contractors who took the NIPP contract had obtained funds from international financial institutions to complement the advanced payments they had received from the Federal Government for completion of the project.
The international financial institutions, Sunday Tribune can report, have been suspicious of the intention of the contractors over the loans they took based on reports of scams that have been rocking the execution of the contract in Nigeria.
Two of the contractors showed Sunday Tribune copies of the queries written to them by the foreign bankers expressing disappointment at the level of frustration they faced in executing the NIPP contract.
One of them also showed a similar memo sent to the Federal Government seeking clarifications on the nature of the problems characterising the NIPP project, part of which they funded.
The contractors had, however, replied the worried foreign bankers with attached documents on how they spent the funds made available to them.
They had, in addition, stated that they had fulfilled their own bargain of the NIPP contract while they heaped the blame of poor execution of the contract on the Federal Government.