2021Budget: NERC asks N2b for partitioning, office furniture

By Christiana Ekpa

The Electricity Regulatory Commission, (NERC), on Wednesday, disclosed that it requires a total whopping sum of N2billion in the 2021 budget, to partition and furnish its headquarters in Abuja.
James Momoh, Chairman of the Commission disclosed this when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Power, to defend the Commission’s 2021 budget proposal.
The NERC Chairman said the partitioning and furnishing of the eight-floor headquarters building became necessary to make the building befitting and habitable after it was acquired.
According to him, work on the building has been ongoing, which made the Commission to propose fundings for it in the 2020 and 2021 budgets.
Momoh also told the Committee that the Commission was unable to spend all the money released to it for the project in the 2020 budget because of the COVID–19 pandemic.
The committee therefore demanded to know the total contract sum to complete the partitioning and furnishing of the office, but the Commission was unable to provide the same.
The committee therefore expressed worries that the Commission was seeking N2billion to partition and furnish the office, in the 2021 budget, but could not say what the contract sum was.
Consequently, Aliyu Magaji, Chairman of the Committee, threatened to delete the request from the 2021 budget proposal.
Magaji said: “If you don’t have the contract sum we will delete it from the budget. You have only one line item and you came unprepared. So you should go back and bring the total contract sum.”