House of Representatives’ Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has summoned Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and 11 electricity distribution companies (DisCos) over $321 million and N18.2 billion loans for accelerated transmission distribution interface, lines, and substation projects. 
   
PAC chairman, Bamidele Salam, handed down the summons when Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Sule Abdulaziz, appeared before the committee, yesterday.
  
 The affected are to appear before the committee on November 8.  Salam said a petition was received on lack of judicious use of the funds, which were paid to the DisCos by CBN at the prompting of TCN.
   
Abdulaziz had told the committee that the funds were paid directly to the DisCos by the CBN to embark on various projects. He said repayment of the loans was from revenue of the TCN.
   
This, however, did not sit well with the committee, which expressed concern over repayment arrangements.Salam demanded that TCN provide details of disbursement of the loans, procurement process, how many DisCos were involved, stage of the projects, and structure of repayment to beneficiaries.
   
He explained: “Sometime in 2021, the then President, Muhammadu Buhari, granted that certain funds be made available for the purpose of enhancing the capacity of our transmission and distribution lines, to be able to have a more robust power sector intervention. And these funds were made available for certain projects to the distribution companies.
  
 “It is the concern of the petitioner that the funds have not been judiciously used and that the projects ought to have been delivered by now, upon which we caused a letter to be written to TCN, which also sent a response on status report of the project as well as procedure for implementation of loan disbursement and execution of projects by distribution companies.”
   
He added: “Our concern is to ensure that all our institutions work well, in accordance with the law and in accordance with global best practices, and ensure money is judiciously utilised.”
   
Also speaking, TCN Market Operator, Edmond Eje, said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission oversaw engagement between TCN and 11 DisCos to align a list of critical interface projects that would significantly increase TCN’s capacity to unlock DisCos’ energy demand in critical load centres.
   
He said 125 projects were identified and agreed upon in the tripartite engagement. Eje explained: “The commission approved the list of 125 projects as well as securing of financing from CBN for the same project to the tune of about N122.3 billion in loan.
   
“The TCN and the 11 distribution companies set up a multi-stakeholder project management office that was responsible for undertaking the procurement and eventual monitoring and evaluation of the project to implement the DisCos’ intervention.
   
“DisCos are the beneficiaries, and took it on behalf of TCN to execute projects. At the end of the day, it was scheduled that from TCN’s revenue, these loans would be amortised from source.”