We Didn’t Insert N7.68bn in Our Budget, Says NBET

Emmanuel Addeh

The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc yesterday maintained that it did not insert any projects outside its purview in the 2021 budget of the organisation that was passed in December 2020.

Some reports quoting insider sources had alleged that NBET was allocated N7.68 billion and had a proposal approved to provide 500KVA transformers for some selected communities in various states at the cost of N150 million as well as the supply and installation of transformers in selected areas of Gombe State for N100 million and N50 million for different locations in Kano State.

In addition, the report listed the electrification of Gudus, Nyalun, Kunkyam, Yuli and other selected communities in Plateau State to the tune of N300 million, outside NBET’s mandate, as other projects surreptitiously inserted into the document.

When asked to respond to the insinuations, the Head of Corporate Communication of NBET, Henrietta Ighomrore, explained that the organisation never added any item in the budget beyond those that were critical to its operations.

She insisted that one of the reports by an online medium that NBET scrambled to remove certain suspicious items after it was uncovered could not be farther from the truth, as it is impossible for NBET to alter an appropriation law, which is an Act of Parliament, singlehandedly.

Ighomrore emphasised that although there may be different versions of the document it presented before the National Assembly, the authentic and duly signed appropriation law did not contain N7.68 billion.

She said: “There is no N7.68 billion in the NBET budget anywhere. This budget was passed in January 2021, so saying that somebody went and changed or removed anything in July is only fictional, and it’s not possible.

“It’s not possible to get a passed budget and remove or add anything. The point of attraction and the sensationalism is centred on the N7.6 billion, and it does not exist anywhere.

“How can we be asking for transformers; what exactly should we be asking for transformers for? We did not ask for any and that’s what I am trying to explain.”

However, Ighomrore noted that as an administration, the government could decide to move any line item to be executed by any agency, but stated that the issue should be whether the said agency of government executed it as specified.

She argued that the National Assembly has the powers to review any budget submitted to it, explaining that it wasn’t within the purview of the NBET to reject a budget passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the president