Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara
• Senate moves to probe privatisation of govt firms
• Upper chamber to investigate Etisalat over $1.2b loan
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, yesterday named a 16-man ad-hoc committee to look into circumstances that led to the recent termination of ports’ management agreement/contract between the Federal Government and INTELS Nigeria Limited.
According to the committee membership list, the House Deputy Chief Whip, Pally Iriase, is to serve as chairman.
The House had, while considering a motion on the termination of the contract by Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) raised by Diri Douye (PDP, Bayelsa), last week, resolved to investigate the issue.
In the motion, Duoye told the House that INTELS had carried out logistic services in Apapa, Onne and Warri ports for 17 years and wondered why the NPA would suddenly wake up to terminate an existing agreement that was meant to run for 25 years.
In a similar vein, the Senate has resolved to investigate the current privatisation status of all Federal Government’s public enterprises with a view to ensuring their functionality and effectiveness, particularly with respect to their impact on the current economic challenges in the country.
Yesterday, it directed its Committee on Privatisation to interface with the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in conducting a public hearing to determine the current status of privatised enterprises, extent of due process in the conduct of the exercise, and enterprises whose privatisation were reversed by the Federal Government.
The upper chamber also mandated the committee to scrutinise the extent of compliance with the post-privatisation conditions by core investors, and the impact of privatisation/commercialisation of public enterprises on the nation’s economy.
These decisions were sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Umar Kurfi (APC Katsina Central) and six others.
Besides, the upper chamber has mandated its committees on banking, communications, capital market and national security and intelligence to unravel the management and utilisation of the Etisalat defaulted $1.2 billion loan facility.
It also urged relevant financial intelligence agencies of the Federal Government to probe the management of the telecommunications firm and hold the defaulting parties accountable for their actions.
These resolutions followed an adopted motion titled, “The need for Senate’s intervention in the recent Etisalat $1.2 billion debt crisis” sponsored by Adeola Olamilekan.
