The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, said Monday that the absence of the Mambilla Power Project in the ministry’s budget for 2024 fiscal year was deliberate.
Adelabu made the clarification when he appeared before a Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Power which has Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe as chairman.
He said the Mambilla Project is enmeshed in serious legal tussle slammed against the federal government by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (SPTCL) on October 10, 2017 for breach of contract .
The federal government in its defence insisted that the contract award was irregular and did not pass through due process.
It will be recalled that Dr Olu Agunloye, who was the Minister of Power at the time, awarded the contract a day after the federal cabinet reportedly told him to step down his request for approval and explore other sources of funding for the project.
However, Sunrise approached the court when a bid process for the civil works was announced by the government in 2007 and a series of litigation had since stalled the project.
The Minister of Power told the Senators and members of the House of Representatives that he deliberately removed the Mambilla Project in his ministry’s 2024 budget.
He said:” For Mambilla, there is no provision for it in 2024. It isn’t a mistake. It is deliberate. It is under international arbitration. Until it is resolved, we can’t do anything about it.”
Speaking on the Zungeru Hydro Power Project, he said it was almost completed.
