A former minister for power and steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye, called the claim that he mismanaged the Mambilla power plant “baseless, false, and malicious.”
According to The Punch, he made a strong and thorough denial of former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s claim in a statement on Sunday, claiming it was unworthy of note.
Agunloye was accused by Obasanjo of mismanaging the project from 1999 to 2003 when he was in office.
Agunloye gave an explanation of the Mambilla Power Project’s original contract, which was given out in May 2003 as a Build, Operate, and Transfer contract.
He said that under this arrangement, the contractor, Messrs Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (Sunrise), was in charge of obtaining funding and carrying out the project with its own funds. The Federal Government of Nigeria was not obliged to pay any amount to Sunrise.
He claimed that under this arrangement, the project’s contractor, Messrs Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (Sunrise), was in charge of raising money and paying for its own execution. The Federal Government of Nigeria was under no obligation to provide Sunrise any money.
Agunloye added that, prior to Obasanjo’s appointment as power minister, four ministers of power and he projected that Sunrise would need to invest a maximum of $6 billion to complete the Mambilla hydropower project.
