Corruption in electricity sector will make one shed tears — EFCC chairman
By Jeffrey Agbo
Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has attributed frequent national grid collapses to corruption within the electricity sector, particularly due to the use of poor and substandard materials.
Olukoyede made this statement on Tuesday during a visit by the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja.
He emphasised the extent of corruption in the sector, saying that Nigerians would be heartbroken if they fully understood the scale of fraud occurring in the electricity industry.
“As I am talking to you now, we are grappling with electricity. If you see some of the investigation we are carrying out within the power sector, you will shed tears.
“People who were awarded contracts to supply electricity equipment, instead of using what they call 9.0 gauge, they will go and buy 5.0.
“So every time you see the thing tripping off, the thing gets burnt, and all of that. It falters, and it collapses. It’s part of our problems,” Olukoyede said.
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Also, the EFCC boss disclosed that the agency would be putting more energy in preventing crime than recovery in the coming days, adding that concentration would be more on the spending of ministries and agencies of the government.
According to him, the EFCC has established a new directory called Problem Risk Assessment and Control, which has as part of its mandate the tracing of funds released to MDAs.
He noted that the directory is working with the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to look at releases against implementation of projects.
Olukoyede said: “We discovered that in the last 15 to 20 years, we have not done up to 20 per cent of our capital project implementation and execution. And if we don’t do that, how do you want to have infrastructural development? How do you want to grow as a nation?
“So our mandate this year is to work with that directorate and with the National Assembly to see if we can meet up to 50 per cent of our execution of our capital project for the year.”