The Federal High Court in Lagos has compelled the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), to account for the money spent on power privatisation.
The court gave the order on Tuesday following the hearing of an argument in court on exparte motion by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) counsel Bamisope Adeyanju.
Hon. Justice C.J. Aneke granted SERAP leave to seek judicial review and order of mandamus to compel Fashola over the “failure to account for the spending on the privatisation of the electricity sector and the exact amount of post-privatisation spending on generation companies (GENCOS), distribution companies (DISCOS) and Transmission Company of Nigeria to date, and to explain if such spending came from budgetary allocations or other sources.”
Justice Aneke also ruled that Fashola be put on notice and adjourned the matter to Tuesday 20th November 2018 for mention.
The suit followed SERAP’s Freedom of Information request dated 7 May 2018 to Fashola giving him 14 days to provide “information on the status of implementation of the 25-year national energy development plan, and whether the Code of Ethics of the privatization process which bars staff of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and members of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) from buying shares in companies being privatized were deliberately flouted.”
SERAP alleged that the Goodluck Jonathan government reportedly spent over N400 billion on the power sector while the Buhari government spent over N500 billion on the sector despite privatisation.
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