Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has explained that the N213 billion intervention fund was introduced in 2015 to rescue the power sector, due to “lack of liquidity”.
Addressing the House of Representatives Ad hoc committee investigating the lingering poor power supply in the country, in spite of huge investment of funds, Emefiele, who on Thursday, was represented by the apex bank’s deputy governor in charge of operations, Mr. Folashodun Shonubi added that of the said amount, N190 billion has already been drawn down.
He explained that the intervention was tagged; National Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility was necessitated by huge debts owed by the defunct National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA).
According to him, the amount recovered of the total drawn to date stood at N60.8 billion, leaving an outstanding balance of N120.3 billion.
The investigating committee headed by Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa, had earlier expressed his displeasure with the CBN for repeatedly failing to honour its summons, noting that the action greatly slowed down the progress of discharging its mandate.
“The entire leadership of the House is not happy. The committee is not happy. MDAs are expected to work in partnership with the National Assembly.
“There was that initial resistance by you, (CBN) to supply us the information we needed to do our job. We have nothing personal against anybody”, Doguwa said, adding that it would take the panel more time to compare notes since the apex bank was only available much later, after other stakeholders made submissions.
