THE Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Dredging Atlantic Limited (DAL) have engaged in a war of words over the dredging contracts of the Escravos at Warri port and the Calabar port dredging.
Addressing maritime journalists in her office over the Weekend, the Managing Director of the NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman stated that the process for the Escravos dredging in Warri port was properly monitored and observed to be flawless by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
According to Hadiza Bala Usman, “You will recall that last year, a Swiss court convicted one of our partners of making payments to certain individuals to facilitate invoice payments at the NPA.
“Upon receipt of the Swiss court conviction document, we forwarded same to the EFCC for further investigations, and also submitted copies to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
“A year later, a subsidiary of that company convicted by the Swiss court now bidding for work at the NPA. We then received a petition that the company has been convicted, and we sent the bidding firm a letter on the issue. They sent us a sworn affidavit, claiming that they are not the company that was convicted.
“When we proceeded with the Tender process, the BPP now asked us to do an independent investigation of the sworn affidavit that was submitted to us by the alleged convicted company. From our independent investigation, we found out that even though the bidding company is a subsidiary of the company that was convicted by the Swiss court, each company has different legal personalities and different profiles.
Again, finding revealed that Directors of each subsidiary company are not the same and that two Directors of the convicted company have also been convicted. And that the two Directors indicted by the Swiss court are not Directors in the subsidiary that is bidding for work with us.
These were observations that were made before we continued with the tender process for the Warri port dredging.
“We should all not forget that the company making all these allegations against the company that won the Warri port dredging is the same company that we cancelled their contract at Calabar ports. Will recall that we cancelled the Calabar contract over findings that work claimed to have been done were not done.
This company is currently being asked to refund $12m Dollars paid to them, back to the Federal Government, and the case is in court.
“In an ideal world, this company should not have even been allowed to bid for the Warri project or any other project because just last year, its contract for the Calabar port was cancelled over claims of having documents on works done when in actual fact, nothing was done.
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“There were also allegations of arithmetic computation that led to the emergence of the Warri port contractor. In financial bid openings, the avenue is provided for computation of numbers to ensure that what was submitted is in line with the bid submitted. That was what was done. The process was verified by the BPP, and we were given the go-ahead to proceed with the contract awarding.
“In addition to all this, during the procurement process, we found out that the dredger this aggrieved company has cannot even dredge Warri port. We realised that it was what this company did in Calabar that they wanted to come and do in Warri.
“We will not be blackmailed or intimidated by all this campaign in the media against us on the Warri port dredging.”
Debunking the claims made by the NPA Managing Director, the legal counsel for DAL, Liboros Oshoma stated that the Calabar dredging job that the NPA MD is referring to was awarded to Niger Global by NPA on a PPP arrangement, and not DAL or its partners.
In his words, “Neither Dredging Atlantic Limited nor our technical partners, West Minister Dredging were part of the Calabar dredging bidding process. Otherwise, ask NPA to give you the bidding documents for that job.
“It’s a notorious fact that West Minister Dredging our technical partners are the best Dredging company in Nigeria. Therefore Niger Global Ltd sub-contracted the Calabar contract to our Technical Partners, West Minster Dredging.
“Unfortunately, after our technical partners commence the job and executed to the tune of $10,000,000, (including a request to do an additional job), Niger Global, apart from the initial $500,000 deposit paid, failed to meet up with subsequent payment terms, which made our technical partners abandon the job.
“It should also be noted that neither Dredging Atlantic Ltd nor West Minister Dredging is in court with the NPA on that matter. If NPA is in court with Niger Global Ltd, it has nothing to do with Dredging Atlantic Ltd or West Minister Dredging.
An NGO dragged NPA before the EFCC for awarding a contract to a sister of a convicted company and for breach of public trust on the ground that, Hadiza, Koko and Prof Abubarka are members of NPA parastatal tenders board committee and all three as well members of Bonny Channel with two Directors of Dredging International, Bert Wille and Steven Poppe.
This is contrary to the Item 8 of the Expression of interest Document of the bid and sections 57(9)a & 57(9)b of the PPA act. Section 57(12)b clearly further supports the inappropriateness of Poppe being directors of Dredging International Services Nigeria Limited and Bonny Channel company limited at the same time with the MD of NPA as Director of Bonny Channel.
“We have been invited by the EFCC to come to make statements, which we have done and further complained to EFCC that our bid figures were manipulated/rigged in favour of Dredging International Services Ltd.
The investigation at EFCC is still ongoing. Also, the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Port, Harbour, Waterways and Procurements is also investigating the matter and yet to conclude on the matter.
“The allegations by NPA are all imaginative and created to malign us for daring to fight for justice, something that most contractors don’t do in Nigeria for fear of losing jobs. “
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