Tokunbo Adedoja in Lagos, Sufuyan Ojeifo and Chinedu Eze
26 June 2008
Abuja — In a dramatic twist to the on-going investigation into the N19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund, the Senate Committee on Aviation yesterday handed over the Head of M/S Avsatel in Nigeria, Mr. George Eider, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
M/S Avsatel was awarded the Safe Tower projects in four international airports in Nigeria by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the contract said to have been inflated.
EFCC quickly moved in and effected the arrest of Eider shortly after making his presentation to the committee on the status of the N6.5 billion Safe Tower project handled by his company.
He is at present being detained at the commission's headquarters in Abuja where he is undergoing interrogation.
Competent sources at the commission told THISDAY that the commission had already spread its dragnets wide for all those involved in the contract deal, including former ministers and other top government officials.
Sources at the commission further told THISDAY that preliminary investigations had so far revealed that M/S Avsatel had the highest bid price.
The closest bid price to that of M/S Avsatel was N2.3 billion.
Some other companies bided for N1.6 billion and N1.3 billion, while the least bid price was N1.2 billion.
THISDAY gathered that operatives of the commission are at present trying to unravel why a company that had the highest bid price was awarded the contract and which had not been completed despite the fact that N6.4 billion had been paid to the contractor.
The Senate committee was said to have been piqued by Eider's arrogant and rude responses to members' questions in the face of documentary evidence showing that the Safe Tower project was grossly inflated.
The projects are for the four major airports in the country, namely Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano.
Immediately the committee ordered the arrest of Eider, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the National Assembly, Col. Emeka Okere (rtd), arrested him and kept him in the police post in the National Assembly until EFCC officials came in for him.
Okere told reporters that he arrested Eider in connection with the inflated contract of the rehabilitation of four safety towers billed for Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt airports.
EFCC officials arrived about 1.30 p.m. and took him away at 1.45 p.m. in a white Toyota Hiace bus, marked AU 329 YAB, after having been detained in the National Assembly Police Post for about 30 minutes.
The committee established that the contract for the Safe Tower was inflated by N4.5 billion going by the world best price submitted by the Technical Consultant to the Committee, Captain Daniel Omale.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Ayim Udeh, said the contractor had already been paid N6.4 billion out of the total contract sum of N6.5 billion.
Omale had told the committee on Tuesday that he had asked the manufacturer of the equipment to give him a job quotation at a 100 per cent marked up profit and that the manufacturer had given him N2.2 billion.
But a member of the Senate Committee, Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah, had said the contract was inflated by N5.5 billion if the equipment were to be supplied exclusively of the 100 per cent marked up profit.
Responding to questions yesterday during the hearing, Eider had admitted he did not see the details of the contract six months after it was awarded to his company.
He also said he had nothing to do with due process before and after he was awarded the contract.
Eider, an Austrian, dismissed the allegation that the contract was inflated and compared the tower project to the one in Vienna Airport, which he said cost 50 million Euros and was inaugurated last October.
He maintained that he had nothing to do with due process, noting that it was the Nigeria Airspace Mana-gement Agency (NAMA) that should have concerned itself with that.
He said the project had been completed 100 per cent at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos; the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; and, Port Harcourt International Airport, Port Harcourt.
According to him, "We have completed three airports 100 per cent. What remains is the Kano project, which has not commenced because the tower is leaking through the wall. It will destroy the equipment if it is installed."
He said what remained in the contract sum was 1.5 million euros.
He also admitted that the contract was meant to last nine months and the agreed date of completion was late last year.
Eider said he did a perfect job which had received approval from the America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
The technical consultant Capt Omale had, on Tuesday, revealed that the project was inflated by N4.5 billion and argued that investigations his office carried out in three countries disclosed that even with marked up profit of 100 per cent the cost of the project would not have cost more than N2 billion.
Meanwhile, reports of Eider's arrest have unsettled aviation stakeholders and principal actors in the disbursement and application of the N19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund, which was approved by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the wake of the air crashes in 2005 and 2006.
Fears were expressed yesterday that some former ministers might be given the same treatment meted out to Eider on the issue of the safe tower project contract.
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We get what we deserve for not being honest to ourselves and for delibrately going against our consiences, tell me how can we eat our future as it were, its only in Nigeria that one see such a trasnperent dishonesty, who award the contract, who supervise it, who authorised the payment, and who inflected the sum, SIMPLY STATED' a Nigerian, prosterity will not forgive them.
This is how nigeria,s money has been misused to the detriment the poor people who need jobs, health insurance,social help etc.Then, they steal the money and take to europe with europeans help,now europeans are bold enough and with the help of the devils we have at home come to nigeria to rip us of our money,we need an example badly.Let fire burn through that country oh God ,ise.These people who are doing all this to us be rest assured that if you die and go your family will still pay for your sins, it,s too much.