Abuja - Following the probe of the release of funds to the power sector between 1999 and 2007, the House of Representatives may issue a warrant of arrest on the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, if she fails to honor the invitation to testify before the committee probing the release of funds.

Okonjo-Iweala, who is now a Managing Director of World Bank, had been invited by the House Committee on Power and Steel, but she is yet to honour the invitation.

According to the Chairman of the committee, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, if she fails to turn up again, the House would move against her. “Of course, we are not joking here,” he said. “If she does not honour our invitation, we will issue a warrant of arrest on her.”

There are however strong indications that Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala was yet to receive any invitation from the lawmakers. I can confirm that she has not been invited, at least not officially,” a source very close to her said. “Don’t forget that she now works with the World Bank. She has to be properly invited before she can leave her official duties to come to Nigeria.”

The House committee was told that the federal government processed 300 contracts and made well over 340 payments in respect of the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) – but none of the contracts in the last five years passed through the Ministry of Power. The contracts were executed between the minister and the Presidency through the Presidential Steering Committee made up of Mr. Joseph Makoju, Shomolu Sheke, Senator Liyel Imoke and Mr. Funso Kupolokun.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy (Power Section), Dr Aliyu Abdulahi, said the civil service bureaucracy was never involved in the award of the NIPP contracts.

Abdullahi, in his submission before the Committee, said: “The Information I got as the Permanent Secretary was that over 340 contracts by the Nigerian Integrated Power Projects were approved, while over 300 payments were made.” He however denied that the NIPP projects were brought to the attention of the Permanent Secretary or any Director at the Ministry. “The Permanent Secretary is usually the accounting officer, but the accounting officer then was the Minister of Power, Senator Liyel Imoke. He approved the contracts and they were forwarded to the due process Office. The minister approved everything without the knowledge of any Director or Permanent Secretary. I have visited some of those projects, but no report has been submitted to me on any of the power projects by the task force that we set up,” Abdullahi said.

The contracts were paid for by the Presidential committee (then headed by the former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar) and not the ministry, he said.

The Managing Director, NIPP, and a seasoned auditor, Mr. James Olotu, told the Committee that the Atiku-led Presidential Committee passed the mandate to a steering committee headed by Imoke, with other members who were Okonjo-Iweala, and Kupolokun, Makoju. In his testimony, Abubakar said: “All NIPP projects were handled by the Minister and then the Presidency. The Permanent Secretaries were never involved. The Minister defended everything; we had no knowledge of any Dire-ctor of Permanent Secretary that was involved from my records. “When I resumed, the Managing Director said he was not going to report to me but the Minister of Finance. I said no and that was the only time a Director was appointed for the NIPP under the Ministry.”

Energo, a company chaired by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abu-bakar, with the former NEPA MD, Alhaji Hamza Abdulahi, as co-owner, was said to have been awarded contracts worth over N19 billion in local currency and £72, 686,136 in foreign content for the construction of KVA stations and transmission lines.
Thomas Lambeth, an Austrian and chief executive of Energo, told the committee that the company had so far received N13 billion, but said that work done so far was just about 10 per cent.

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