The Nigerian Governors’ Forum
(NGF) has resolved to offset all outstanding fees owed consultants in the
payment of the Paris-London Club loan refunds to the states.
The consultants to be paid
include all those that were engaged by previous administrations in various
states.
This decision was reached in
Abuja at a meeting of the Legal Committee of Nigerian Governors’ Forum held at
Plateau Government Lodge.
The meeting was chaired by
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State – who alongside Governors Nyesom Wike
(Rivers), Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), Simon Lalong (Plateau), Seriake Dickson
(Bayelsa), Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo (Gombe) and Mohammed Abubakar (Bauchi).were
mandated to review and provide solution to the demands by consultants on the
refunds to states.
A source close to the governors
said that all members of the Legal Committee attended the meeting
except Governor Seriake Dickson, who had earlier dissociated himself from the
hiring of consultants for the first tranche of the Paris Club refunds by the
Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).
It could recalled that a spate of
controversies and alleged infractions have trailed the payment for the first
tranche of loan refunds from the Paris-London club.
One of the consultants in the
payment of the Paris Club loan refund to the states, Ned Nwoko, had sued the 36
state governors in his bid to compel them to pay him $176m or the naira
equivalent of N53.6bn (at official N305/dollar) as his consultancy fee for the
recovery of N522.74billion foreign loans deductions.
Nwoko, a former member of the
House of Representatives and legal practitioner, accused the governors and the
Nigerian Governors’ Forum of paying those he described as phoney and sham
consultants.
In his statement of claims, he
had said, “Despite repeated demands, the defendants have failed or refused or
neglected to pay to me the sums due to me for the services rendered.
“That I have not been paid the
sums due and payable to me by the state governments and that the defendants
made payment of the said sum to some phoney and sham consultants.”
According to him, it was agreed
in his engagement letter to recover the accruals from the funds wrongly
deducted by the Paris Club and London Club between 1995 and 2005.
Similarly, a case of perceived injustice
against one of the consultant progenitors of the Paris Club Refund – Mauritz
Walton (Nig) Ltd. generated issues with the governors on the payment of the
consultant fees.
The governors had preferred
payment to consultants engaged more recently at the expense of those who
pursued the loan refund even with previous administrations.
Engaged as far back as 2014 by
Akwa Ibom, Delta, Abia, Bauchi, and Cross River states, Mauritz Walton (Nig)
Ltd had pressed for the loan refunds to the states during the tenure of a
former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala.
Some of the efforts made by the
firm at reconciling debt records which the Buhari administration inherited were
detailed in a letter to the federal government signed by Dr. Maurice Ibe
(Managing Consultant) and Alh. Sani Anani (Associate Consultant) for the firm.
The letter states: “The above
named company was appointed as consultants by some state governments to carry
out reconciliation and recovery of all over deductions on foreign loans (1995
to 2006).
“Subsequently, the loan records
were received and reconciled for all the states under our client list (1982 to 2006).
It was discovered that the total deductions from the states’ statutory revenue
from June 1995 to March 2006 (period of “first line charge policy”) were
completely omitted in the past reconciliation exercises.
“It is important to kindly inform
that Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Debt
Management Office (DMO) and FAAC Sub-Committee did not include this period.
“Therefore, based on our
findings, we submitted a demand notice to the then Coordinating Minister of the
Economy and Minister of Finance as established over deduction of our clients
(states).
“The purpose of this letter is to
seek your kind intervention as the Chairman of Debt Management Office (DMO) to
resolve these issues once and for all.
Another source of controversy
with regards to the issue of consultants’ fee had to do with the discrepancies
in the percentages agreed between states and the consultants.
Some of these states agreed to
pay the consultants between 10 to 20 percent of the money to be recovered by
them from their creditors.
Some of the states that signed
agreements to pay 10 per cent to their consultants are Abia, Kogi, Adamawa,
Taraba, Delta and Zamfara.
While Ondo State signed to pay 12
per cent, states like Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, Niger signed to pay 15
per cent.
Bayelsa, Oyo and Edo states
agreed to pay 20 per cent to their consultants.
The source said: “with the decision of the Legal Committee of the NGF to push for the
payment of all outstanding fees to all state consultants, the on-going legal
battle between the governments on one hand and the consultants that pursued the
repayment of the excess deductions made on Nigeria’s repayment of foreign
loans, will be ended and the prospect of fresh ones averted.
He further disclosed that
“another meeting of the NGF Legal Committee has been scheduled to hold on
Tuesday with the issue of payment from the Paris-London Club Refund to Local
Government Areas expected to top the agenda.”
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