The House of Representatives at its plenary session of Thursday, 15 February 2018 mandated its Committee on Power to investigate, resolve the incongruities in the Draft Power Sector Recovery Programme and report back within four (4) weeks.

This came after the Hon. Abubakar Yunusa Ahmed (APC:Gombe) presented a motion highlighting the inefficiency that has bedeviled the power sector in Nigeria despite the privatization of the sector since September 2013. In particular, he noted that in spite of the huge costs expended on implementing power sector projects throughout the federation, the sector had failed to deliver value as power supply has become more erratic while many parts of the country lack electricity supply.

Speaking further, he stated that the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing in conjunction with the World Bank and other institutions had instituted a Power Sector Recovery Programme [PSRP] with a view of ascertaining financial viability for the sector and rehabilitate the Nigerian electricity supply industry. He said although the said PSRP proposes solutions to address financial concerns, it failed to proffer a remedy for fixing the infrastructural and technical flaws that had resulted in the power sector performance catastrophe and market shortfall being experienced.

Hon. Ahmed also expressed concern that the Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP) did not hold private companies accountable as the PSRP required the government owned Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) to raise debt for funding the programme; being the manager and administrator of the electricity pool in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). He faulted the implementation of the PSRP as targeted at merely paying liabilities and creating a platform for squandering scarce financial resources without effectively eliminating the root causes of power sector problems in Nigeria.