Electricity industry regulator in Nigeria has budgetted N2 billion for furniture and partitioning of office space at its headquarters in Abuja, administrative capital of the country.
Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) particularly wanted the legislators to approve this spending, saying it requires a total of this N2 billion in the 2021 Budget, to partition and furnish its headquarters.
Chairman of NERC, Prof. James Momoh, disclosed this yesterday at a budget defence with the House of Representatives Committee on Power. He said the partitioning and furnishing of the eight-floor headquarters building became necessary to make the building befitting and habitable after it was acquired.
The chairman said work on the building is ongoing, which made the commission to propose funding for it in the 2020 and 2021 budgets.
He explained 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.
Following his presentation, the committee demanded to know the total contract sum to complete the partitioning and furnishing of the office, but the commission was unable to provide same.
The committee, therefore, expressed concern that the commission was seeking N2 billion to partition and furnish its head office in 2021 Budget, but could not say what the contract sum was.
Consequently, chairman of the committee, Hon. Aliyu Magaji, threatened to delete the request from the 2021 Budget proposal.
He said: “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.”
