Follow Us on Google
Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives has said it would probe the Justice and Petroleum Resources Ministries over the $9.6 billion judgment debt delivered in favour of Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) Limited by a court in the United Kingdom.
The House said it would set up an Ad-hoc Committee to carry out the investigation and report findings for further legislative action.
It also resolved to initiate a process of reviewing all Agreements and Treaties signed by the country, so as to correct anomalies in them, to forestall a repeat of the P& ID case.
The House resolutions on the P&ID case followed the adoption of a motion moved by Julius Ihonvbere on the need to investigate alleged negligence in the handling of the transaction with P& ID by the Justice and Petroleum Resources ministries.
Ihonvbere, in his debate, decried the $9.6 billion awarded against Nigeria, and called on the House to unravel the circumstances surrounding the sealing of the contract between Nigeria and P&ID.
“For a country with a foreign reserve of only $45 billion and a sovereign debt profile of over $80 billion, this judgment debt is not only punitive, but would devastatingly affect the Nigerian economy,” said Ihonvbere.
“The agreement was somewhat shrouded in secrecy, and apparently dubiously procured, and the relevant laws in Nigeria for the transaction to be consummated was not applied especially, Part IV of the Bureau of Public Procurement Act 2007 which deals with the Fundamental Principles of Procurement
“Two years down the line, P&ID had not built any gas plant to which Nigeria could supply wet gas for processing, signifying in the first place that the move to arbitration was opportunistic and grossly self-serving,” he said.
The lawmaker said the judgment exposed the decay in the governance and leadership in the country, and the credibility and capacity of the country to handle business and legal cases.
In his contribution, Bamidele Salam, said from accounts in the media, it was obvious that there are lapses on the part of the government on the execution of the P&ID contract.
“In as much as it important to find out what went wrong, we should take steps to ensure that things like this bill not repeat itself,” Salam stated.
