Managing Director of the Calabar Channel Management (CCM) Company Limited,
Mr. Bart Van Eenoo has demanded an immediate apology and a retraction from
the former Kaduna State Military Governor, Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar
(rtd) over his recent statement that the contract for the management of
the Calabar Channel awarded to CCM “is a bogus scam to siphon public
funds”.
Eenoo in a statement in Abuja on Monday said the failure of the retired
Colonel to meet the demand “will leave our company with no other option
than to seek legal redress as the statement has cast aspersion on our
integrity”.
He said it was disheartening that Umar,a leading national figure could
spurn lies on a legal entity without verifiable facts, adding that
contrary to the claims of the former military governor, “our company has
dredged the water channel by deploying dredgers, survey vessels, buoyage
tender, wreck removal cranes and other ancillary marine crafts which so
far, 16.3 kilometres out of the envisaged 20 kilometres high spots within
Tomshort Island had been dredged with the deepening of the channel to 6.5
metres datum”.
“It is absurd that someone can accuse our company of “a bogus scam” when
our partners- Boskalis and Westminster Dredging, internationally acclaimed
companies are involved. All the stakeholders at the Calabar Port including
the NPA’s Station Manager in Calabar then, had alluded to the fact that
CCM carried out appreciable work on the dredging until the disruption of
work by the NPA. Even some of the stakeholders were always aboard the
dredgers during the cause of the dredging to have a feel of the work done.
It is therefore, not correct that we did not carry out any dredging at the
Calabar Channel”, he added.
Justifying further that work was carried out on the dredging, he said CCM
on August 20, 2015 for instance, through its bankers-UBA, paid $1,207,440
to Dredging International Services for crewing and provision of logistics
at the Calabar channel for nine weeks, $500,000 to Nigerian Westminster
Dredging and Marine for dredging services at the Channel and $3,600,000 to
Societe de Dragage for dredging services.
“If the former military governor is alleging that we did not dredge the
Channel, why did our company pay for the services of these companies even
when our invoices with the NPA were not paid? We have spent more on the
dredging than what NPA has so far paid us”, he said.
On the allegation that the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) in its
report on the JVC advised against the dredging of the Calabar Channel,
Eenoo said the transaction has a “No Objection Certificate” signed by the
former Director-General of the BPP, Engr. Emeka Eze.
According to him, a former Board Chairman of the NPA had written to the
Presidency against the project and the President then, referred the
matter to the BPP which after evaluating the matter gave the “No Objection
Certificate” and said the complaint by the former Board Chairman of the
NPA was merely personal differences which it advised should not affect the
integrity of the project. The former Chairman also wrote to withdraw the
petition.