The House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets has summoned the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority, Dr Abubakar Dantsoho and NPA’s contractors over alleged defective Public Private Partnership, PPP, concessions and lease agreements......CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE>>>>>
The Chairman, House Committee on Public Assets, Ademorin Kuye who made this known during an interview with journalists said the arrangements of most of the lessees, concessionaires and PPP partners of NPA have either expired and are operating without valid or the agreements are due for review sometimes this year.
He recalled that the House of Representative in February 2024 resolved that House Committee on Public Assets review all Concession, lease, PPP and Joint Venture development agreements that various MDAs have entered into on behalf of the federation and determine the profitability and continual usefulness to the country.
He said the committee, in undertaking the investigation as empowered by Section 62(1), 68 and 89 and the 10th National Assembly Standing Order, wrote to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government, especially those with land, building and major facilities under one of these arrangements with private entities in one form or the other.
Kuye said while the investigation is ongoing, there are discoveries that some of the concessions, leases and PPP arrangements are defective and were undertaking without due processes.
“To further complicate the matters, some of the MDAs do not have records of arrangements to present. One of such cases is the Nigerian Ports Authority that claimed that all their leases & concession agreements, and details of their PPPs were lost during the #EndSars conflagration that took place in 2020.
“Coincidentally, most of the lessees, concessionaires and PPP partners of NPA have their arrangements either expired and are operating without valid or the agreements are up for review sometimes this year – a situation that is making these partners/lessees/concessionaires dodge the committee and avoid implicating NPA,” he said.
He said this action which is not peculiar only to NPA and its tenants/partners but has been noticed in some of other government institutions, is an attempt to impede the National Assembly’s constitutional mandate to summon and investigate breaches in dealings with the Federal Government.
He said, “the House is ready to bring the full weight of the National Assembly to bear in punishing this blatant and criminal disregard to its summons and the constitutional breaches of these MDAs as well as recommend any public officer for prosecution during these investigations.”