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The House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement, yesterday, summoned Minister of Power, Mr Babatunde Fashola; Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun; Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Ahmad Ali (retd), and others over their alleged roles in pre-shipment inspection deals bordering on violation of Procurement Act of 2007.
The lawmakers also invited Director-General of Industrial Training Fund, ITF, Joseph Ari; Managing Director of Cobalt Nigeria Ltd, Mr Darlington Agha, and Managing Director, Trobell Int’l Nig Ltd, Sede Thomas. They are expected to appear before the committee next Tuesday.
But an attempt by a member of the committee, Kolawole Gabriel, to include former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was resisted by his colleagues, who insisted that the current Minister of Finance has not in any way complained of any inadequacies.
The lawmakers also expressed displeasure over the failure of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, towards payment of N25 billion into the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme, NESS, accounts.
Oluwole Oke, chairman and members of the committee had during the second day of the investigative hearing on the “alleged abuse, breach and violation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in the engagement of Pre-shipment Inspection Agents, PIAs,” also frowned at the NNPC’s non-remittance of $20 million unspent fund to the Federation Account at the end of the 2016 financial year.
The lawmakers also queried the failure of the appointed Pre-Inspection Agents, PIAs, to carry out inspection of all export terminals where all exports carried were out by NNPC at the inception of the scheme.