Nigeria’s Minister of Power Chinedu Nebo has warned that the era of fraud in any form in the nation’s power sector is over.
Speaking on a Television programme Tuesday, the minister said the syndrome of ‘the Nigerian Factor’ would not have a place in the sector during his tenure, indicating that a monitoring mechanism was being put in place to plug all loopholes in the system to ensure that every money utilised was accounted for.
“We are setting up a very robust monitoring device. One thing I can assure you is that all leakages will be plugged. It’s not going to be business as usual. The legacy that we have now will not tolerate the so-called ‘Nigerian Factor’ and leakages,” he said.
The minister warned: “If anyone wants to continue in the old games, then we will hold them accountable. I can assure you that we have put in place a solid mechanism to ensure that when government puts in funds somewhere, government gets a concomitant, good, quality work that it has paid for.”
Nebo also announced that government would soon establish a National Council on Power, as exists in the education and other critical sectors of the Nigerian economy, to bring all stakeholders, including state governments, into the Federal Government’s programmes on power.
“When inaugurated, the Federal, state and local governments will buy into the entire power sector reform,” he said.
