2018: Senate queries N10bn solar streetlight project in varsities
- The Senate has criticised the plan of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to spend N10 billion on solar streetlight project in universities
- The chairman of the committee, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said if the agency had N10 billion to 'play around with' there was a better way to manage it
- The REA MD, Damilola Ogunbiyi, noted that the agency was already working in nine federal universities to upgrade electricity supply in the institutions
The Senate committee on power, steel development and metallurgy has queried the Rural Electrification Agency's plan to spend N10 billion on solar streetlight project in nine universities across the country, Punch reports.
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Legit.ng gathered that the chairman of the committee, Eyinnaya Abaribe, and other members asked why the Rural Electrification Agency planned to spend the sum of N10 billion on solar streetlights.
While defending the 2018 budget proposal, the managing director of REA, Damilola Ogunbiyi, listed Rural Electrification Access Programme in federal universities with N10,148,146,829.00 earmarked for it.
He stated that the agency was already working in nine federal universities to upgrade electricity supply in the institutions.
The lawmakers expressed their dissatisfaction with Ogunbiyi's defence of the project, nothing that it was coming at a time when the power sector had been privatised.
One of the members of the committee, Senator Mohammed Hassan, said he could not understand why the agency was spending a huge amount of money to provide solar power in universities when rural communities for which the agency was created were left in darkness.
Another committee member, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, requested for the list of beneficiaries of the projects.
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The REA boss listed the University of Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka, Usman Dan Fodio University in Sokoto, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University in Bauchi, and Ado Bayero University, Kano as some of the federal institutions to benefit from the project.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the 2018 appropriation bill passed the second reading at the Nigerian Senate.
The lawmakers referred the bill to the committee on appropriations for further legislative action.
The Senate during consideration of the 2018 appropriation bill inserted in the document a clause which makes it mandatory for the executive to revert to the National Assembly any excess arriving from the benchmark set in the 2018 appropriation act.
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Source: Legit.ng
