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The controversies surrounding loans continues to rage on as the House of Representatives committee on Treaties, Protocol and Agreement has described the immunity clause surrounding the agreement on the Chinese loans signed by ministries of Transportation and Finance respectively as ambiguous and obscured.
Hon Nichola Ossai Chairman of the committee stated this on Monday in Abuja during an ongoing $33 billion probe on the $500 billion Chinese loans signed by the federal government.
Ossai said the national assembly through its committee will ensure that due diligence will be taken concerning the loan agreement adding that the effort of the committee is to review the agreement of some projects.
According to him, we are not only focusing on Chinese loan as alleged. Nigeria has over 500 treaties and agreement.
“We believe that we can’t continue to approve loans without asking questions.
Stakeholders should therefore stop the politicization of issues relating to this matter”, Ossai said.
Minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi while at the probe however made clarification that the ministry of transport only signed $1.6 billion which was for the ongoing Lagos-Ibadan light rail project and not $33 billion as alleged.
An altercation however ensued between the committee chairman, Ossai and Mr. Amaechi when he noted that local content was not applied in carrying out the $1.6 billion light rail project.
Ossai insisted that the transport minister proved him wrong by providing relevant documents where local content was adhered to in the light rail project but the minister assured the committee of providing the documents in their next meeting.
Speaking shortly after a sudden 30 minutes break by the committee as called by Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, the committee chairman pointed out that there was a contract signed by the ministry of Finance which was governed by the Chinese law as well as a commercial agreement signed by the ministry of transportation which was governed by the Nigerian law.
He further noted that the agreement signed by the Finance ministry concerning the Chinese loans has to do with security threat.
The transportation minister explained that if the agreement between China is stalled, Nigeria will no longer have access to the loans on the projects.
Earlier, ministry of Finance represented by its permanent secretary on special duties, Aliyu Ahmed alluded to the fact that the ministry signed the Chinese loans agreement as it is of international best practices.
Gbajabiamila had made a sudden appearance to the probe following the shun of a member, Oluwole Oke by the committee chairman while trying to guide the chairman on his questions to the minister of transportation during a heated debate.