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Godwin Tsa, Abuja
Former minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja Division how he approved the N2.5 billion released to Pinnacle Communications Ltd by the National Broadcasting Commission under the Digital Switch Over (DSO) project of the Federal Government.
This was contained in his June 13 statement, which he made available to defence counsel in the alleged fraud case brought against the NBC Director General Ishaq Modibbo Kawu and executives of Pinnacle Communications Limited.
In the statement, Mohammed said he approved the payment “on the strength of” particular reference to section 11.2 (c) of the White Paper governing Implementation of the DSO in Nigeria by the NBC DG in recommending the payment to him for approval.
He said section 11.2(c) of the White Paper “directed the NBC to put in place necessary conditions and ensure that close to a level playing field is achieved in reference to the significant advantage over new entrants enjoyed in the DSO ecosystem by the Government Signal Distributor, in this case the ITS that came out of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), which already had 157 transmission sites spread across Nigeria.”
The former minister added that the recommendation letter from NBC also recalled that ITS had already been paid N1.7 billion for DSO rollout in three states and also, noted that payment of N2.5 billion to Pinnacle Communications Limited would represent close to a level-playing field that the White Paper called for.
