Federal Government of Nigeria has set aside N1.1 billion for the establishment of a task force that will probe existing problematic contracts that can undermine the nation’s economy like the controversial Process and Industrial Development Limited (P&ID).
Gatekeepers News reports that the ministry of justice made the provision in its 2022 budget to support the “establishment of a federal taskforce and development of federal contracts administration system (FCAS) in Nigeria.”
Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice appeared before the senate committee on judiciary to defend his ministry’s budget on Monday in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
He noted that there were nine other contracts similar to the shady P&ID contract.
Gatekeepers News reports that a British court awarded a $9.6 billion judgement against Nigeria after over P&ID contract. The company claimed it entered a contract to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River state and that the deal collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfil its end of the bargain.
Malami, while defending the need for the task force, told the Senate committee that the P&ID contract did not go through the AGFs office or the federal executive council (FEC) for vetting.
“The major problem with P&ID is that the contract was never ever allowed to pass through the office of the attorney-general for vetting. So, on the account of that there are embedded in the contract clause that is inimical to the interest of the nation,” the minister said.
“Because of the fact that there is a preliminary conspiracy among the key promoters of the contract, the contract was never allowed to pass through the federal executive council, FEC for its approval, neither was it allowed to pass through the federal ministry of justice for vetting.
“The existing structures are there, but they can only act in respect of contracts that are referred to the department. We have developed need for other circulars that these are intended clauses that could be tolerated in public interest and the interest of the nation in mind were attached.
“In respect of P&ID, there were about nine contracts that were signed at the same time in breach of due processes and procedure. They are there; they simply use the P&ID as a test case.
“If it has indeed, succeeded in taking away $10 billion out of our economy, those other existing contracts that were signed at the same time in breach could have now have been the contracts we will be faced with in terms of arbitration and associated issues.”
