TheCable

The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc is making moves to expunge the N7,620,840,000 allocated for the “senate” in its 2021 budget, TheCable understands.

A review of the 2021 approved budget of NBET, an agency under the ministry of finance, shows an item without a code number tagged “Senate 5%”.

It is still unclear what NBET plans to do with the staggering sum for the senate as Nnaemeka Ewelukwa, NBET’s chief executive officer, did not respond to calls and messages from TheCable to clarify the curious item found in the budget.

It was also discovered that NBET — the body that buys power from the generating companies (GenCos) and sells to the distribution companies (DisCos) — also allocated N630 million to buy transformers and electrify rural communities. This is not part of the agency’s mandate.

The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) is saddled with the responsibility of providing energy access to rural and underserved communities across the country.

TheCable understands that NBET has asked the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to approve the award of the contracts.

The development is coming at a time the agency is struggling to fulfil its financial obligations to GenCos for energy wheeled to the grid.

After the publication of the exposé, insiders told TheCable that the budget has been corrected and the controversial N7.6bn billion for senate merged into the fund for GenCos under the “power sector reform programme”.

By implication, the corrected version of the approved budget will no longer contain the “5% senate” item.

TheCable also learnt that the publication of the report has raised a dust of controversy at the agency.

The board of NBET is expected to meet on Friday to deliberate over the questionable items in the approved budget.