The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukoyede, yesterday attributed the frequent collapse of national grid to the activities of corrupt contractors, who are sabotaging the efficiency of the power sector.

The EFCC boss also expressed concern that financial crimes and corruption undermined the nation’s development.

Speaking while receiving members of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes during an oversight visit to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, Olukoyede said dubious practice was a major cause of frequent equipment failures, outages and grid collapses.

According to him, one of the problems of this country in the last 15 years to 20 years is that budget performance is always below 20 per cent.

He said: “Investigations carried out by the EFCC showed that contractors in the power sector, who were awarded projects to supply electrical equipment, often opted for substandard materials. “As I am talking to you now, we are grappling with electricity.

If you see some of the investigations we are carrying out within the power sector, you will shed tears.” He said some of the electricity companies bought substandard goods to run the electricity, and this has been responsible for the frequent collapses of the national grid.

He lamented poor implementation and execution of capital projects in the country, saying that Nigeria can not achieve infrastructural or any form of growth under such conditions.

He also said the commission discovered that in the last 20 years, capital project implementation and execution in the country were not up to 20 per cent.

He added: “If we do not do that, how do you want to have infrastructural development? How do you want to grow as a nation?

“Our mandate this year is to work with the National Assembly to see if we can meet up to 50 per cent of our execution of our capital project for the year.”