Grass cutting contract: SGF declines Senate summons, heads to court

THE Secretary to the Government of the Federation, David Babachir Lawal, told the Senate on Wednesday that he would not honour the summons of its ad hoc committee on the Rising Humanitarian Crisis in the North East, which asked him to appear on Thursday.

The SGF, in a letter to the Committee dated March 22, 2017 and addressed to the Chairman of the ad hoc Committee, Senator Shehu Sani, said he had headed to the court on the matter.

The committee had on Tuesday summoned him to appear before it on Thursday to clear perceived grey areas in the Committee’s interim report released last December.

The ad hoc committee had indicted Lawal and asked his to resign his position following his indictment in its investigations of the activities of the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE), which was alleged to have awarded some contracts to the company linked to the SGF.

But a source in the committee told Tribune Online on Wednesday that the Committee Clerk, had received a letter from the Managing Director of Rholavision Engineering Company, which stated his
inability to attend the hearing of the Senate.

At about 6.30pm on Wednesday, a staff of the office of the SGF brought another letter signed by the SGF himself, which notified the Senate Committee he would not be attending the hearing.

In the letter signed by the SGF, the government scribe declared that he would not attend the Senate hearing because he had gone to court to challenge his summons.

The letter titled “Re: Invitation to Public hearing” reads:
“Your letter of invitation to appear before the above committee refers. I wish to kindly request that you draw the attention of the other members of the committee that I will not be able to appear before the committee primarily because I have gone to court to challenge the invitation among others.

“Please find attached the court documents.

“Please accept my highest regards.”

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Shehu Sani, who confirmed knowledge of the letters, said that his Committee would go ahead and discuss its report at the Senate plenary on Thursday.

The Committee’s letter on Tuesday had categorically summoned the SGF and his company apparently in reference to the latter from President Muhammadu Buhari in January, which alleged lack of fair hearing on the part of the Senate.

The summon reads: “The Senate at its sitting on October 4, 2016, debated on a motion ‘mounting humanitarian crisis in the North East’ after which an ad-hoc committee was constituted.

“The committee was to conduct a public hearing in order to ascertain how much has been released to the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) and also to ascertain how these funds have been utilised from inception to date.

“The committee was also expected to investigate the diversion of grains and other food items from the Strategic Grain Reserves, NEMA and other sources for the IDPs.

“Consequently, the committee held a three day public hearing between Dec 6 and 8, 2016, even though some of the invited stakeholders refused to attend.”