Fashola
There
is prospect Nigerians keen on knowing why the power sector reforms in
the country have not yielded any tangible result and why the citizens
continue to stay in darkness but still made to pay crazy electricity
bills, despite the huge spending on the sector, may soon have some
answers, as the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos today granted
leave to Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to
seek its reliefs to compel the Minister of Power, Works and
Housing Mr Babatunde Fashola SAN to account for the spending.
Hon.
Justice C.J. Aneke granted SERAP leave as prayed to seek judicial
review and order of mandamus to compel Mr Fashola over the “failure
to account
for the spending on
the privatisation of the electricity sector and the exact amount of
post-privatisation spending on generation
companies (GENCOS), distribution
companies (DISCOS) and Transmission Company of Nigeria to date, and
to explain if such spending came from budgetary allocations or other
sources.”
Justice
Aneke granted the order for leave following the hearing of an
argument in court on exparte motion by SERAP counsel Ms Bamisope
Adeyanju. The Court also ruled that Mr Fashola be put on notice and
adjourned the matter to Tuesday 20th November
2018 for mention.
It
would be recalled that SERAP had in June sued Mr Fashola in
suit number
FHC/L/CS/972/18 at
the Federal High Court seeking “an
order for leave to apply for judicial review and an order of mandamus
directing and/or compelling Mr
Fashola to
provide specific
details on
the privatization of the electricity sector, the names of all the
companies and individuals involved; and to publish widely including
on a dedicated website any such information.”
The
suit followed SERAP’s
Freedom of Information request dated 7 May 2018 to Mr Fashola giving
him 14 days to provide “information
on the status of implementation of the 25-year national energy
development plan, and whether the Code of Ethics of the privatization
process which bars staff of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE)
and members of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) from
buying shares in companies being privatized were deliberately
flouted.”
The
suit read in part: “Most
of the companies that won the bids had no prior experience in the
power sector and little or no capacity at all to manage the sector.
The privatization of the Power
Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have
yielded the country total darkness. The gains
of privatization have been lost through alleged corruption,
manipulation of rules and disregard to extant laws and lack of
transparency in the exercise.”
“The
Goodluck Jonathan government reportedly spent over N400 billion on
the power sector while the present government spent over N500 billion
on the sector despite privatisation. It is unclear if this spending
is drawn from budgetary allocations and if these are loans to
generation companies (GENCOS), Distribution companies (DISCOS) and
Transmission Company of Nigeria.”
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