Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN) has said for the country to experience sustainable power supply, the energy sector needs a comprehensive forensic performance audit.
 
The audit, it observed, would cut across financial management, operational performance, resource allocation, infrastructure management, asset integrity and value for money.
 
According to a statement by the institute, yesterday, CIFCFIN’s President and Chairman, Governing Council, Dr Iliyasu Gashinbaki, made the call at the 11th Direct Membership training/graduation and awards of fellowship, as well as the third Annual General Meeting of the body in Abuja. He said the institute was willing to deploy its array of forensic experts to offer free technical assistance to the Federal Government to conduct the audit.  He submitted that Nigeria’s economic prospects were tightly tied to its ability to generate, transmit, distribute and manage energy efficiently.
 
“Yet, as we speak, the sector’s performance remains one of the most glaring obstacles to economic growth, industrialisation and also one of the major problems that undermine the vision of the $1 trillion economy of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR,” Gashinbaki stated.
 
He recalled that before the privatisation of the sector in 2013, under a single national power authority, the country generated 3,800 megawatts, saying: “However, despite the successful privatisation of the power sector into about 25 different companies/entities, they have only produced 5,400 megawatts, increasing generation by only 1,600 megawatts in 12 years. Besides, the national grid has collapsed 105 times within the last 10 years, plunging homes, hospitals, and factories into darkness.
 
“Furthermore, in 2024 alone, manufacturers spent the humungous sum of N238.3 billion on alternative power.” Stating that the current model of management and oversight in the energy sector was not yielding the result that Nigerians desperately needed, Gashinbaki declared that a forensic performance audit of the sector has become not only necessary, but urgent.
 
In his goodwill message, former Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr Suleyman Ndanusa, said the canvassed forensic performance audit was a step in the right direction.  He said: “At the end of the audit, the result of the audit will now provide a pathfinder of how to bring about resolutions to all the issues.”
  
In his remarks, Director General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Prof. Abubakar Sulieman, commended CIFCFIN for setting the bar for forensic practice in Nigeria, which, he said, would prevent fraud and sharp practices “that have been constraining the private and public sectors from operating at their best.”