• Senate probes $5.79b Mambilla power project contract
Additional tariff on electricity for Band A customers will kill businesses, especially as Nigerians endure excruciating hike in prices of food items and general services, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said.
Congress President, Joe Ajaero, said in Abuja yesterday that the increment from N206.80 to N209.50, which took effect from July 1 for Band A customers will further heighten the hardship in the country.
He added that the increment comes on the heels of unresolved contestations around the insane 250 per cent hike in tariff leading to the shutting down of 300 businesses as stated by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).
He said: “That there is another hike instead of a reversal (as promised) is further proof of the insincerity of government just as it is equally a measure of government’s insensitivity.”
He insisted that the exchange rate, interest rate and cost of gas that were cited for the increase were untenable, saying, “given the further damage this latest wave of increase will do to our economy, we demand an immediate reversal of the hike. It is unjustifiable, unreasonable and malevolent.”
MEANWHILE, the Senate, yesterday, directed its standing committees on appropriation, power, and finance to investigate the entire Mambilla Hydro Electric Power Project (MHEPP) $5.792 billion contract transaction from 1999 to date. It also expressed concerns over the inability of the project to come to fruition since its conception.
The resolution of the Senate followed its consideration and adoption of a motion sponsored by Senator Harun Manu during plenary. Manu had drawn the attention of the Senate to the benefits the country stands to gain by the time the project becomes functional in terms of complementing the national grid, job creation, industrialisation, and tourism potentials for the region and Nigeria in general.
Reacting to the resolve of the red chamber to carry out the probe, a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Babangida Nguroje, lauded the Senate for rising in defence of the Mambilla hydroelectric power project with the view to ensuring that the project comes to fruition.
He expressed joy that the project, which has been on the drawing board since the inception of the current democratic dispensation, if completed would create over 55,000 jobs, construction of resettlement homes for over 100,000 people, hauling and supplying of over 2.7 million tons of steel, production and supply of over 76 million tons of quarry stone and provide opportunity for cement manufacturing companies as well as auto-manufacturers in Nigeria.
