allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Power Probe - Reps Summon Ministry Legal Officers (Page 1 of 2)

Following startling revelations at the just concluded public hearing on the expenditure on the power sector that 34 unregistered companies were awarded contracts to the tune of N6.2 billion by the Ministry of Power, the House of Representatives has directed the permanent secretary in the ministry, Dr. Aliyu Abubakar to produce all the legal officers that vetted the contract papers.

Chairman of the Committee, Honourable Ndudi Elumelu, said the summon became necessary following the discovery by the panel that such a large number of companies got various contracts passed through their desks without being detected that they were not registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

"We are getting near there. There are procedures for awarding contract in all government offices, and I don't think that the Power Ministry and PHCN should be an exception," he said.

"We have asked the permanent secretary to make them available. Even if they have left the place for other ministries or departments, they should have their new addresses. There are many things we will not take for granted"

A group called The National Watch had last week gone to court to compel the committee to list the names of the beneficiary companies that got the jobs. Elumelu and his colleagues complied with the group's request after verifying the names with the CAC.

CAC, in their covering letter, told the House, "There is no evidence in our system to show that the following underlisted companies are registered. It will be appreciated if additional information including the registration numbers of the above companies are forwarded to the commission to enable us carry out further search on them," said Dominic O. Inyang, who is the deputy manager for public relations, and who signed the letter on behalf of the registrar-general.

Governor Olusegun Agagu, under whose tenure as minister of power an steel the contracts were awarded to the non-registered companies, while testifying explained. "It is possible. This is how companies get jobs when tenders are advertised. The minister is not a member of the tenders board. The tenders board recommends and I approve. No minister would have the time to look into the registration of companies. I don't think any minister would be dutiful enough to do that. There are technical people whose schedule is to do that. The bureaucracy does that. Our bureaucracy should be looked into. Even in season of crisis the bureaucracy drives government and drives it well".

Meanwhile, some former members of the House have said that the revelations emerging from the recent probe was a vindication of the then members of the House of Representatives' attempt to impeach the president on constitutional breaches,

Honourable Mohammed Wakil, leader of the House from 1999 to 2003, said the then House was vilified by the administration of former President Obasanjo because of their attempt to exert their constitutional powers.

Wakil disclosed yesterday that the House was never confrontational in its relationship with the executive arm. Rather, he said, it was the former president who wanted to usurp the powers of the National Assembly by refusing to implement laws passed by the legislators.

He said Obasanjo never implemented Appropriation Acts as passed by the National Assembly, stressing that "it was the major point of our disagreement with him. But many people misunderstood us then and we were called names," he added.

"What the president does then was selective implementation of laws particularly the Appropriation Acts. It was when we tried to exert our authority that we were given names. But it was disheartening to hear people talking that we did nothing to checkmate the former administration", he added.

Wakil accused some ministers of withholding facts from the legislators, a development, he said rendered the lawmakers impotent in their oversight functions, adding that most of the ministers refused to give the members a free hand to perform their constitutional duties.

He explained that he was happy with the revelations emerging from the on-going probe in the power sector, stating, "Nigerians will now see the dilemma we were in at that time. It's not true that we didn't do anything to stop the administration from acting outside the constitution. It was an open fact that we were vilified and hoodwinked, our hands were tight…Many prominent Nigerians came intervening when we started the impeachment process, asking us to stop in order to protect our nascent democracy".

"We were forced to cave in because of the respect we have for the elders and to protect our democracy because the country was emerging from a long period of military rule and we were afraid if we proceed with the impeachment plan the military will cash in and draw us back again".

He asked the panel not to be distracted from what it has been doing, saying, "Nigerians are watching them, their success means a lot to the country". The committee should not hesitate from invoking the constitution if those invited refused to appear before it, he said.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories