The Senate against all odds finally adopted the recommendation of its Adhoc committee that probed alleged fleece in the BPE. UCHENNA AWOM in this analysis declares that the ball is now in the court of the executive arm of government.
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President of the Senate, David Mark fumed over media reports that the Senate was dilly-dallying over the consideration of the recommendations of the Senator Ahmad Lawan-led adhoc committee which probed the commercialization and privatization activities of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). He was vehement in anger, though he reeled in open ululation, but behind the façade, Mark betrayed a house that simply caved in to public pressure.
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He literarily bemoaned the fate of the Senate in the circumstance, but yet Mark gave an icing on the cake to the resolution while still berating the media for ‘daring’ to thump the upper chamber in the nose. Mark thundered the handicap of the lawmakers before the press thus:
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“It is not the lot of the senate to implement the recommendations,? it is left for the executive to implement the recommendations. “I hope those who have been insinuating that the Senate has been trying to avoid discussing the report now know what we can do, nobody forced us to carry out investigation, we did it on our own and nobody made effort to stampede us. There was no time the report was withdrawn because of conflict with the senators, the Senate is one. I think those media houses that carried the story without naming their sources should be courageous enough to apologize”.
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Mark’s expletives underscore the pressure that laced the investigation. The pressure was not only from the media, also the organized labour threatened brim stone and fire if any attempt was made to kill the probe findings.
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It could be recalled that the adhoc committee on BPE presented its report to the Senate on November 23, after three months of investigations into the activities of the bureau.
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The delay to discuss the committee’s recommendations after? a month its submission to Mark fuelled speculations of a grand plot to suppress, whittle down or even at worst kill the report in its entirety because of its far-reaching indictments of the handlers of the privatization exercise and the call for the revocation of most of the privatized enterprises.
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The expectation receded to the point of utter drudgery and of course the media went to town to sound out to the weary public that the sleaze discovered in the course of sale of their collective patrimony was about to be swept under the carpet.
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However, in a dramatic twist, the Senate on Tuesday rushed through the 45-point recommendations with unanimous “ayes” that resonated in the Red Chamber as Mark called them point-by-point.
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Among the adopted recommendations are the removal of the Director-General of BPE, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, for “her gross incompetence and for the illegal and fraudulent sale of the federal government’s residual shares in Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited”, as well as the indictment of former heads of the Bureau, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Dr. Julius Bala and Mrs. Irene Nkechi Chigbue, for seeking approval directly from the president instead of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) as stipulated in the Public Enterprises Act, 1999.
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For the failure of their respective core investors to deliver on the fundamental provision of Share Purchase Agreement/Post Acquisition Plan, the Senate also asked the NCP to rescind the sale of Abuja International Hotels Limited (NICON Luxury Hotel), Abuja; Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja; the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON); the Delta Steel Company and re-advertise the affected companies for fresh sale.
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The upper chamber also called on the NCP to rescind the sale of Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) to Folio Communications Limited in keeping with the court judgments in suit (1) FHC/L/CP/1328/2009, (2) FHC/L/CP/244/10, and (3) FHC/L/CP/130/2010.
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The senators advised the federal government to implement the Inter-Ministerial Technical Audit Report on Ajaokuta Steel Complex dated July 2011, which recommended the completion and inauguration of the plant by the federal government.
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Furthermore, it recommended that the BPE should discontinue the use of privatization proceeds to settle staff terminal benefits, consultancy fees, transaction expenses and execution of capital projects.
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“It should approach the National Assembly for appropriation as provided for in Section 80 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended,” said the report, directing the Bureau to close all privatization proceed accounts in commercial banks and henceforth put all proceeds in Privatization Proceeds Account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in compliance with section 19(1) of the Public Enterprises (Privatization and Commercialization) Act 1999.
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The lawmakers also recommended that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should be immediately investigate the economic crimes being perpetrated against the nation at the premises of VON Automobile Nigeria Limited in Lagos by Barbedos Ventures Limited (BVI), while the taxes and import duties accruable to the federal government on all goods smuggled into the warehouse of VON Automobile Nigeria Limited should be computed and recovered by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) respectively.
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Already the affected parties have begun to react. The tone of their reaction was more or less to affirm the declaration of Mark, who had while ruling on the resolution cautioned that ‘it is not the lot of the Senate to implement the recommendation’. By implication, the meaning in what Mark said was that resolutions by parliaments no matter how plausible are mere advisory, which does not have any force of law. But that does not diminish the fact that resolutions in the magnitude of the current one cast a moral burden on the authorities.
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In his reaction shortly after the Senate endorsement, Group Managing Director of the Global Fleet Group, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim said the Senate resolution advising the federal government to revoke the sale of some privatized companies’ ends at that point.
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Ibrahim was quoted as saying that he did not buy the NICON Luxury Hotel from the Senate, and that the Senate was not privy to the transaction with the federal government.
According to him, the Senate lacked the jurisdiction on such contractual matters, adding that the probe was unfortunate as it lacked fair hearing rights and was a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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In the same vein, El-Rufai’s media adviser, Mr. Muyiwa Adekeye, said there was no justification for the recommendation of reprimand for the former BPE DG.
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“Recommendation 38 which asks that he be reprimanded for seeking presidential approval for privatization issues is without basis. A careful reading of the entire 172-page report yields Annexure 38, pertaining to the privatisation of NITEL/MTEL, and that does not support the recommendation. The decision to sell NITEL to IILL was approved by the National Council for Privatization, (NCP), chaired statutorily by the Vice-President.
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“It was the same NCP that approved IILL’s request for extension of time to pay for the purchase, and the failure to meet the new deadline led to IILL forfeiting its deposit to the treasury. Nowhere in the report is any document shown alluding to the request for or the granting of presidential approval in the NITEL/IILL matter. Once again, El Rufai challenges the Senate to present any evidence to support this spurious recommendation,” he said in the statement.
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No matter whatever misgivings, the submission and eventual adoption of the recommendations by the senate represents a milestone, and it is not surprising if the usual Nigeria factor again plays out in the present circumstance. The hues and cries by the named actors in the act should also not come as surprises to the discerning mind. That has been the lot of the Nigeria situation as nobody is wrong without any political imputation.
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The good thing is that unlike previous probe reports, this one was laid bare and its findings have provided the lawmakers the impetus to name names irrespective of social and political status of the culprits. Somehow the journey may have begun with the debate to enthrone transparency in the handling of the public good and also the report and the disposition of senators may now; ‘scare would be heist masters’ that the time for itchy fingers has run out. Perhaps, the only missing link here is the seeming lack of courage to reprimand former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his vice, Atiku Abubakar under whose nose the charade as it were took place.
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In any case, cynics will perhaps go to rest or at best shift ground a bit for pessimists to beat their chest over the seeming successful conclusion of the first phase of the probe by the Senate into the rot that is called privatization and commercialization processes, which was supervised by the Bureau of Public Enterprises. It is the first phase in the sense of successful completion of the probe and subsequent adoption of all the recommendations. It is now left for the executive to either act or forever stop mouthing ‘aversion for corruption’. Senate’s spokesman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe told the press that contrary to pessimism and several innuendoes the Senate has done its beat and did not sweep the findings under the carpet adding that it is left for the executive to continue where the Senate stopped.
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Like the Chairman of the Adhoc committee Senator Ahmad Lawan did say; “I have done my work with members of the committee in the best of tradition, in obedience to the laws, in adherence to people’s right as exemplified in the public hearing and fact finding visit to the privatized firms. We carried out our function bearing Nigeria at heart and we have done our best and we are convinced that what we have done was most thorough and revealed the true situation, which exposed what has happened to our collective patrimony’.? The senate has concluded its work and of course it is a landmark achievement. All eyes are now on the executive. But does it have the political will to wield the big stick?