the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, over
alleged award of a coastal shipping contract to a foreign company.
Rep. Legor Idagbor, the Chairman, House Committee on Nigerian Content
Development and Monitoring, issued the summons on Wednesday, in Abuja,
during an investigative hearing on the contract allegedly awarded in
2020.
He said that the award of such contract to a foreign company, UNIBROS,
was in breach of the law, while asking the NNPC GMD to appear before it
on Oct 13.
The House said if the NNPC failed to appear, the process of the law and
the powers given to the National Assembly would be followed to deal with
the corporation.
The House also summoned the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi
Amaechi, as well as the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring
Board (NCDMB).
He directed the NNPC, Transportation Ministry and the NCDMB to furnish
the committee with every single detail of the contract, as it did not
have a single document in relation to the contract in its possession.
According to a letter from the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland
Revenue Service (FIRS), Mohammed Nami, read at the hearing, UNIBROS was
not registered in its database and that payment had been made in the
name of the company.
President of the Shippers Association of Nigeria (SOAN), Dr George
Onyung, who was at the hearing, said that the NNPC side lined local
shippers and, without due process, awarded the contract to UNIBROS, in
spite of the fact that local shippers had the capacity to carry out the
job.
“The NNPC awarded the contract to UNIBROS. It is a coastal shipping
contract. It is one contract, but for 11 vessels. That is the whole
share of the coastal shipping.
”This means that when those vessels that bring the product from abroad
arrive Nigeria, the ships that would take the products to various
jetties that have the shallow draft, which is a cabotage trade to start
with, is supposed to be domiciled in Nigeria”, he said.
He added that the NNPC hired up to 11 to 14 ships to be able to do that
trade and then supply those products.
“They gave it to one company called UNIBROS, and all those ships are
foreign flags, all are foreign owned, and they do not hire Nigerians.
Idagbor observed that based on the submissions of the ship owners’
association, they had shown that they have the capacity to handle the
contract.