By Gift Chapi Odekina
The House of Representatives yesterday summoned the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, to appear before it next Wednesday for allegedly awarding a coastal shipping contract to a foreign company, UNIBROS, in breach of the law.
The House said if the NNPC fails to appear, the process of the law and the powers given to the National Assembly would be followed to deal with the agency. Also summoned was the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, as well as the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The summons followed the absence of the NNPC, the transport ministry and the NCDMB at an investigative hearing by the House Committee on Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring, on the contract allegedly awarded in 2020 in breach of the Cabotage Act.
The Committee, headed by Legor Idagbor, directed the three agencies to furnish it with every single detail of the contract, as it did not have a single document in relation to the contract in its possession.
Also according to a letter from the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mohammed Nami, read at the hearing, UNIBROS is not registered in its database and that payment has been made in the name of the company. President of the Shippers Association of Nigeria (SOAN), Dr MkGeorge Onyung, who was at the hearing said the NNPC sidelined local shippers and without due process, awarded the contract to UNIBROS, despite the fact they have the capacity to carry out the job.
He said, “The NNPC awarded the contract to UNIBROS. It is a coastal shipping contract. It is one contract, but for 11 vessels. That is the whole share of the coastal shipping, which means when those vessels that bring the product from abroad arrive Nigeria, the ships that would take the products to various jetties that have the shallow draft which is a cabotage trade to start with. It is supposed to be domiciled in Nigeria. The NNPC hires up to 11 to 14 ships to be able to do that trade and then supply those products. They gave it to one company called UNIBROS, and all those ships are foreign flags, all are foreign owned, and they do not hire Nigerians. They don’t train anybody, that is our concern.”
Chairman of the Committee, Legor Idagbor said according to the submission of the ship owners association they have shown that they have capacity for the contract.
Expressing displeasure with the NNPC for shunning the hearing, he said, “Let me state on record that this committee is totally displeased by the correspondence signed by one Garba Mohammed, Group Public Affairs Division from NNPC. We wrote a letter to the GMD NNPC on this investigative hearing and if for any reason, he could not be here present, he should have at least had the courtesy of himself responding to the communication that was issued by this committee. So we discountenance this. We take it that we have not heard from NNPC and in our next adjourned date if NNPC does not appear on that date, we would not hesitate that to follow the process of teh law and the powers given to the National Assembly. This meeting is adjourned for one week.”
He said the Committee was focused on the breach of the law. “Ours laws specifically state that our contracts must be awarded to indigenous ship owners according to the Cabotage Act. If you go ahead to award a contract without adhering to those four things as stipulated in our laws, it is in breach,” Idagbo said.
Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Bashir Jamoh, said the Cabotage Act 2003 provides that trading under the law, the vessel must be locally built, owned, manned and registered. He said any vessel that does not meet these four requirements is in violation of the law. He said in the event a vessel does not meet the four requirements, the Act provides that the Minister of Transportation can grant provisional license to a foreign shipper for not more than one year for the Cabotage trade to take place so the local economy would not be crippled. He said even if the local shippers do not have the capacity for the contract, the provision of the law must be respected. END
