Reps to probe TCN over expenditures

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has resolved to hold a special hearing on 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

The chairman of the committee, Abdullahi Saidu (APC-Niger), who made this known in Abuja on Monday, said the special session was to enable the Managing Director of the company, Dr Sule Abdulaziz, appear in person.

It would be recalled that the committee announced that the ongoing hearing on MTEF/FSP would end on Thursday, September 15.

The TCN Director of Finance, Ahmed Dutse, had earlier told the committee that the managing director lost his mother and took part of his annual leave to mourn the dead and would resume after 10 days.

Saidu, however, said the documents submitted by the TCN was in disarray, noting that the committee was having difficulties putting them together.

He said there were repetition of expenditures with different figures in the documents submitted to the committee by TCN.

“I am seeing some confusion here, transport and travelling expenses N394 million on the first page and then you also have transport and traveling expenses N2.6 billion on the second page.

“I can now understand why you said you are underfunded, with this kind of bonanza going on in TCN, no matter how much we give you, you will not be adequately funded,” the lawmaker said.

John Dyeh (PDP-Benue) further stated that TCN expended almost N500 million on electricity charges alone.

Dyeh said it appeared that the company wanted to spend all it generated so there would be nothing to remit into government coffers.

The lawmaker added that oil was running out, saying oil revenue was now less than N3 trillion and the rest of the funds was generated from tax.

“If you are spending money like this, how do we get money to fund the budget, when you make little money and spend it like this; and we are borrowing N11 trillion to fund the budget,” he said.

Earlier, Dutse told the committee that the TCN was poorly funded and it was affecting its operations, saying in 2020, N130 billion was budgeted but only N7 billion was released.

He said in 2021, N105 billion was budgeted but only N6 billion was released adding that in 2022, N168 billion was budgeted but only N6 billion was released.

Dutse stated that the company has been surviving on its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

The Star

Segun Ojo