Ngige faults Obasanjo’s power plants, says they were wasteful

The Deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power and a chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Senator Chris Ngige, has said that the power plants built by the government of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo during his tenure as president were wasteful.
The ace politician said this yesterday at the Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka, where he presented a paper on Power Supply in Nigeria; during the First Judiciary Day of the Student Union Government of UNIZIK.
According to him, the cost of securing and laying pipe to carry gas to the power projects at Papalanto, Oloronsogo, Geregu, Omotoso and other places, was enough to build more of such power plants and fund transmission and distribution projects.
While lamenting that the improved power generation across the country could not get to the people because the transmission network in the country was inadequate to carry it to the final consumers, he regretted that the contract management and supervision of the power projects had been very poor.
“We have put some power generating companies on hold because if we put them all on, there will be a system collapse in transmission lines, which are very old.
“But we (in the National Assembly) have stepped up our oversight in the sector. We have appropriated significant money in the 2013 Budget to the transmission company so that the more than 2,500 mega-watts of electricity trapped in the power generating companies can be transmitted to the people for use,” he said.
DailyPost