Aniekan Bassey, Senator representing Akwa Ibom North-East Senatorial District, has urged the Senate to examine the controversial Make-Up Gas (MUG) reprocessing deal involving the Federal Ministry of Finance, Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Calabar Generation Company Limited and Acugas Limited.
In an announcement from Senator Bassey’s media unit obtained by Media Talk Africa, he made the decision by a movement throughout Thursday’s Plenary.
Bassey famous that if the Senate fails to examine the circumstances below which the GSA and MUG had been executed by the Federal Government with Acugas Limited, these transactions would represent an limitless drain on scarce public funds, which ought to have been utilized in the direction of the execution of different urgent Government tasks.
He, nonetheless, urged the senate to set up an Ad-Hoc Committee and mandate the Committee to examine the circumstances below which the GSA and MUG association was executed, the events concerned, funds to date made to entities to date, the standing of implementation of the GSA, and for this goal invite all stakeholders to the transaction, together with the Immediate previous Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Dr Zainab Ahmed, the NDPHC, Acugas Limited, Calabar Genco, the Transaction Adviser engaged below the MUG deal, and so on ,and to report again inside two weeks.
According to Senator Bassey, “The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), a company owned by the Federal, States and Local Governments in Nigeria to hold and manage Nigeria’s Independent Power Projects, sometime in 2017, entered into a GSA with Acugas Limited for the supply of gas to Calabar Generation Company Ltd (Calabar Genco), a subsidiary of the NDPHC. Under the GSA, the Federal Government of Nigeria is obliged to pay over $10million monthly to Acusgas Limited and this monthly obligation was protected and secured with a Take-or-Pay clause, implying that the monthly payment of over $10million must discharged unfailingly by the Federal Government whether the Calabar Genco takes delivery of gas or not.
“The discharge of the Take-or-Pay obligation by the Federal Government has become a major concern to all well-meaning Nigerians because of its huge burden on the public treasury as huge sums of money were paid to Acugas even for gas not received or utilized by Calabar Genco.
“In a bid to get Nigeria out of this controversial Take-or-Pay cul de sac and put in place an arrangement to reprocess and redirect the gas for which Nigeria has paid for but not utilized over time, the then Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, initiated a MUG deal involving Calabar Genco and Acugas Ltd.”
The Senator additional urged the Federal Government, significantly the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation, to guarantee due diligence within the preparation and execution of transaction agreements with firms and different traders to keep away from the ugly state of affairs the federal government is dealing with below the GSA with Acugas Limited and a number of other different entities.
