PROBE MARILYN AMOBI, NBET BOSS NOW – CACOL TELLS EFCC, ICPC

11^th February, 2019

Press Release

PROBE MARILYN AMOBI, NBET  BOSS NOW – CACOL TELLS EFCC, ICPC

The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has called on the two corruption fighting agencies in the country, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other related offenses Commission (ICPC), to immediately probe the Managing Director of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc. (NBET), Marilyn Amobi, for alleged fraudulent payment of, at least, N2bn (Two Billion Naira) to two power generating companies as well as her involvement in a series of corrupt acts such as subversion of board approvals and infraction of procurement laws.

In a release issued by the anti-corruption organization’s Coordinator, Media and Publications, Adegboyega Otunuga, the Executive Chairman, Mr. Debo Adeniran stated, “We would recall that over the last weekend, some Nigerian Newspapers, particularly the very credible online Newspapers, PremiumTimes, published the result of an investigation into the Electricity sector in the country and revealed how, few weeks after Marilyn Amobi was confirmed as the substantive boss of NBET in July 2016,  she started overpaying two power generating companies – Omotosho Electric Genco and Olorunsogo Electric Company, in flagrant violation of the details of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) the companies signed with the government in February and August 2016, respectively; the PPA being an agreement between NBET and power generating plants for the sale and purchase of energy generated by the plants.

“Also, embedded within the PPA are the Gas Supply Agreement (GSA) that covers the supply of natural gas to the generating plant and the Gas Transportation Agreement (GTA), which is an agreement between gas transporters and power generating plants. According to the PPA, to qualify for full payment, generating plants must provide evidence that they have active GSA and GTA or else the power purchase agreement would be deemed inactive and would only receive payment for the power they supplied. The agreement obtained by Leaks NG shows this fact, “Seller (Omotosho Genco) hereby agrees that any claim for Available Capacity payment under the PPA are conditional on the Seller providing evidence acceptable to the Buyer (NBET) confirming that it has a legally binding and enforceable Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement and Gas Transportation Agreement, in accordance with clause 3.2.2 and 4.2.1 of the PPA,”

“It was, however, discovered that, despite the fact that Omotosho did not provide evidence of gas supply aggregation and transportation, the company continued to tender request for full payment for 20 months. According to available documents, the over-invoicing was detected in October 2017 following an NBET internal audit.

“All efforts to get Omotosho to fulfill the condition for the PPA by providing necessary documentation were rebuffed, even as in June 2017, he supplied energy to the tune of 33.16megawatts but invoiced up to 161.74megawatts. This shows that Omotosho laid claim to an excess of 123.58megawatts as excess capacity for the cycle and requested for payment of N1.023bn (over One Billion Naira)  instead of N209.82mn (a little over Two Hundred Million Naira), leaving an excess of N813.7mn for the capacity in June, 2016. Another firm, named, Olorunsogo also issued an invoice of N1.25bn for capacity for June, 2016 as against N75.36mn calculated by its actual energy, thus, making the two firms over-invoicing an amount that is up to N1.99bn (almost Two Billion Naira) in just one single month of June, 2106.”

The CACOL Executive Chairman added, “Other infractions committed against the people and government of Nigeria by this woman, whose scale of corruption is literally competing with her former Petroleum, counterpart, Ms. Alison Madueke, includes but not limited to: Illegal Payment of Millions of Naira to Law firms, Illegal Payment to Consultant, Transfer of staff to without Board Approval, contrary to laid-down rules, etc. While all these corruption issues underline the cause of much of our underdevelopment as a nation, it portends a very grave risk to the survival and sustenance of democracy in the country as failure to provide the basic needs of the people always serve as a veritable plank for civil unrest and instability in government everywhere. This is why CACOL, as an anti-graft organization, especially that kind of corruption that is usually perpetrated by those at the helms of affairs, should always sound very repugnant to all Nigerians.

“We therefore, call on EFCC to investigate Marilyn Amobi’s activities and bring her to justice, if found wanting in any way to serve as a deterrent as well as a way of overturning the fortunes of power supply debacle in the country.”