Manmbilla power project in trouble?
Sunrise Power and Transmission Company (Limited (SPTCL) has filed a $400 million arbitration claim against the federal government for alleged breach of contract in the 13,000MW Mambilla Hydropower Project.
The project, located in Taraba State, has again run into troubled waters with legal hurdle mounted by Sunrise Power which is claiming a breach of contract by the federal government.
It was gathered that the Nigerian company lost out on a contract to build the multi-billion-dollar plant.
SPTCL is accusing the government of reneging on a settlement accord agreed last March that was supposed to resolve a long-running dispute over the rights to construct the Mambilla facility.
The company, Bloomberg reported, has filed a case at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris asking the tribunal to order the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to honour the agreement, its lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) told the news medium.
Export-Import Bank of China had agreed to help fund Mambilla, but has insisted that it won’t release the money until the legal standoff ends.
Plans to develop the plant on the Donga River in the eastern Taraba state dates back to the early 1970s, but the project has got off to multiple false starts.
Initially intended to be a 3,050-megawatt facility that would cost $5.8 billion, the power ministry said it scaled back the scope of the project to improve its “bankability.”