House Of Reps Kick As NERC Demands N2 Billion To Furnish Headquarters In Abuja

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has budgeted a whopping sum of N2 billion for the purchase of office furnitures and the partitioning of offices at its headquarters in Abuja.

The NERC chairman, James Momoh disclosed this on Wednesday when he appeared before the house of representatives committee on power to defend the commission’s 2021 budget proposal.

Mr Momoh said the partitioning and furnishing of the eight-floor building became necessary to make the building conducive after it was acquired.

He said works on the building were ongoing which made the commission to propose funding for it in the 2020 and 2021 budgets.

According to NAN, Momoh told the committee that the commission was unable to spend all the money released to it for the project in the 2020 budget because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The committee, however, demanded to know the total contract sum needed to complete the partitioning and furnishing of the office, but the commission was unable to provide same.

The committee expressed worry that the commission was seeking N2 billion, but could not state what the contract sum was.

In his ruling, the chairman of the committee, Aliyu Magaji, threatened to delete the request from the 2021 budget proposal.

“If you don’t have the contract sum we will delete it from the budget. You have only one line item and you came unprepared. So you should go back and bring the total contract sum,” he said.

This is coming on the heel that the Federal Government is seeking a fresh $1.2 billion external loan from Brazil to finance agricultural programmes in the 2021 budget.