By Isaac MARSKSON
THE idea of building an Independent Power Plant, IPP, for Delta State to address its power problems was first mooted in 2000, during the administration of Governor James Ibori. During his tenure, Ibori appointed a consortium of engineering firms to undertake a power survey of Delta State. The consortium was made up of three companies: Engineering Management Support Limited, Optimal Power & Control Engineering Limited, and George Spiropoulus & Associates. At the conclusion of its assignment, the consortium submitted a report that estimated that the power demand for Delta State would be between 440MW and 570MW.

However, Ibori, who left office in May 2007, did not take on the IPP project, but Emmanuel Uduaghan who took over from him did.

The N23B IPP Project in Oghara.
In an executive council meeting held in May 2009, Governor Uduaghan approved the contract award for the acquisition and installation of two Open Cycle Rolls Royce Trent 60wle phase 111 Gas Turbine generators capable of being fired by natural gas and diesel oil.

The turbines were to have an installed capacity of 116MW and expected to generate 100MW of electricity for the State Independent Power Plant (IPP) project.

The contract was awarded to Davnotch Nigeria Limited, in partnership with an American firm, Southern Integrated Energy Limited, at the cost of $125million (one hundred and twenty five million dollars). The dollar exchange rate used for the contract was N176 to a dollar, which translated to N21,750,000,000.00 (twenty-one billion, seven hundred and fifty million naira).

In 2010, Ovuozorie Macaulay, the then Commissioner for Energy, in his brief to the state’s Economic Management Team, disclosed that the government paid 60% of the contract sum to Davnotch that same year. At the time the contract was awarded, one of its owners of the company was Victor Ochei who was at that time the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly.

Further investigation revealed that the contract sum of N21.7 billion did not include land acquisition, appointment of Prime/Resident Consults, Insurance coverage, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), construction of 132/33KVA transmission line to evacuate power to be generated and construction for gas supply for the IPP project, a development that led to the upward review of the contract sum in 2010 to N23.2 billion.

Governor Uduaghan Fails to Complete IPP Project.
On July 26, 2011, Uduaghan boasted to journalists during a briefing that work on the power project would be completed before he leaves office in May 2015, noting that with the successful completion of the turbines in Europe, work had reached an advanced stage. He added that he was optimistic that the turbines would be shipped into the country by August 2011.

But his promise to complete the project before he leaves office was never fulfilled.
Our reporter gathered that in line with the contract agreement Davnotch Nigeria Limited supplied the two Rolls Royce Gas turbines at the stipulated time, but the turbines were still awaiting installation when the contractor demobilized from site in Oghara, in 2014.

The lPP project was aimed at providing adequate, stable electricity for the people of Oghara, the hometown of Chief James Ibori and other parts of Delta State, however ten years later the project remains uncompleted and abandoned.

Governor Okowa’s government inherits IPP Project in May 2015.

The state Independent Power Project (IPP) was among the many projects inherited by Ifeanyi Okowa, when he assumed office on May 29, 2015. In 2016, to ascertain why the IPP project was abandoned, Okowa set up a 16 – man committee headed by David Edevbie, then commissioner for Finance, to investigate, proffer solutions and advise his administration on what could be done to revive the moribund multi-billion naira project. While inaugurating the committee, Governor Okowa also said his administration would prosecute anyone found culpable considering the huge resources that the project had gulped.

Edevbe’s Committee Swings into Action.

In 2016, Edevbe and members of his committee went on an on the spot assessment tour of the IPP facility. The delegation included the project consultants, A & A Global, officials of Access Bank, the financial advisers on the project, and representatives of the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice.

Since the IPP project remains completely abandoned, frantic efforts was made by this reporter to obtain Edevbe’s panel report but all efforts hit a brick wall. Not deterred Sunreporters wrote a Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, request to the office of the state governor, copying the Chief of State to the Governor, now incidentally occupied by Edevbe and the Honourable Commissioner, Ministry of Power and Energy but there was no response until October 12, 2020, when the newspaper got a letter from the office of the Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice notifying it that the Delta State Government cannot release such documents under this federal Act and advised it to apply for the information under the Delta State Freedom of Information Act 2019, an advise the newspaper acted upon.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/how-delta-state-government-spent-over-20bn-on-two-ipp-projects-that-are-yet-to-generate-any-power/

Good things don't come easily

900 Years for the governor.
cc: NnwayiOgwashi, seems Okowa is not working.

Waste of resources. What is the need of spending 20 billion naira on IPP when you still be forced to channel the electricity generated into the obsolete national power grid?

Nigerian leaders can make heaven

How can you spend almost 23billion on a project and still end up abandoning it

Leaders without conscience

Is it not Nigeria again?
So why should I be surprise

Delta the most stupid state in Nigeria