7th September, 2020
The Buhari administration has moved to tighten the bureaucratic loopholes that will ensure scams such as the one attempted by an Irish firm, Process, and Industrial Development (P&ID), never occurred again.
Abubakar Malami, Justice Minister and Attorney-General gave an insight on the measures, in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday night.
“The first thing that has been done is to ensure that there are consequences for wrongdoing and those elements in respect of which investigations have been concluded, were charged, arraigned before the court and convicted.
“As well, we have taken steps to tighten our processes with particular reference to ensuring that things are done rightly; if a company is coming to establish a project in Nigeria, relevant associated permits and approvals must be obtained.
“If certain structures are being placed, there must be evidence of land acquisition.
“If an agreement is needed involving the government and its interest, that agreement must be allowed to pass through the process of vetting in the office of the Attorney General by the relevant departments.
“And then if indeed the draft agreement is okayed, it has to pass through the Federal Executive Council for consideration, deliberation, and eventual approval before committing the government in the process”, he said.
Malami also revealed that the bank guarantee of $200 million placed with a United Kingdom court to secure a stay on asset seizures of up to $10 billion related to the P&ID case has not been paid.
“Nigeria has not paid and we filed an application for the variation of the order to allow us perhaps to consider the possibility of posting a bank guarantee against posting cash deposit.
“The order for the deposit for such amount of money and the appeal component is being considered at the superior court of record, but one thing I want to place on record is that Nigeria has not paid the amount in contention and has challenged the order as it relates to the posting of cash deposits,” Malami stated.
P&ID, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands, won a $6.6 billion arbitration award against the Nigerian government after the 2010 gas project collapsed.
The award accrued interest since 2013 and is now worth about $10 billion.
Nigeria on September 3, secured a landmark victory in its pursuit to overturn the judgment, by proving a prima facie case of fraud against P&ID and winning its case to appeal the arbitration ruling.