The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, was again grilled for one hour on issues relating to the appointment of the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, and the Manitoba contract deal.
Fashola had arrived at the venue at precisely 10 a.m. as stated in his letter of invitation but the investigative hearing did not commence until 11a.m.
The minister, who had in the last one week appeared before four different committees, had to urge the House leadership to help streamline the number of hearings involving the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, due to the similarity of subject matters
He also questioned the decision of the committee to hire a consultant who worked for Manitoba that caused the problems faced by TCN leading to the said probe.
Fashola, while expressing his frustration on the frequency of his visit to the National Assembly, said: “Like the representative of the speaker rightly pointed out, we closed here last week, and we are resuming this week with this committee.
“Committees of the House also will be asking us of our budget performance, and we just need to work in the office so that we can also perform.
“So, I think there’s a sense here that I respectfully ask you to sufficiently use this time so we can also work to serve the Nigerian people.”
The minister’s frustrations came on the heels of multiple invitations to the House to which he had been attending in the last two weeks, with another one pending with an adhoc committee set up to probe the TCN over its management of $1.5billion World Bank loan facility and its adherence to both the Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement Acts in the utilisation of the loan.
“We have a letter dated 20 December, 2017 and that letter is issued under the name of one Nnamdi D. Onuigwe Esqr, Comittee Clerk. And it’s from the House of Representatives, saying that the House has constituted an ad-hoc committee on the need to investigate the Fiscal Responsibility and Procurement Acts by the TCN. pursuant to House resolution 114/ADHOT/TCN2 of the 20 December.
“Now, we were waiting to be invited by the adhoc committee when we got this letter asking us to come today, signed by Ibrahim Sidi, Committee Clerk pursuant to House resolution 189 of 5th December 2017.
Although, it’s headed as “Need To facilitate Swift action on management of TCN Electric Power Reforms, it goes in the body to ask us to come and explain to this investigative committee the interim management of TCN on the delay in the implementation of projects such as the Nigerian Electricity Gas Improvement project that will improve power sector in Nigeria.
“So I seek clarification in order to assist the committee in its work and if it’s possible to harmonise all of what we want to do together, bearing in mind that this House substantially is handling some possibly over-lapping issues,” he said.
While the committee chairman, Daniel Asuquo (PDP, Cross River), in his response, denied any contradiction or ambiguity, the representative of speaker Yakubu Dogara at the hearing, Onyema Chukwuka (PDP, Anambra) agreed with the minister, assuring him that the leadership would seek ways of harmonising the terms of reference of both committees with the regards to the TCN probes.
The Minister questioned the rationale behind the hiring of Mr. Ron Van Arnault as committee consultant when the same man worked with Manitoba to cause the management breakdown suffered by TCN under the previous administration.
The members, however, asked the Minister why he questioned the involvement of the man, Fashola noted that the consultant apart from having worked for Manitoba, also benefited from contracts awarded without procurement approval in the Ministry, and won’t be totally professional in providing advice to the committee.
Responding, Chairman Asuquo fired back saying that Fashola was not in a position to condemn his decision to hire the man as chairman of the committee.
Asuquo disclosed that he has text messages exchanged between Fashola and the consultant wherein the minister solicited for his professional advice.
Going further he said: “Just as you have your reasons for taking decisions, I also have my reasons for hiring Mr. Ron and it’s not up to you to question our decision”
“Today, Mr. Eugene Edozie is seated here as Permanent Secretary of your Ministry, but I could remember in 7th Assembly, I served on a panel that investigated him on an allegation that he didn’t have NYSC certificate, and we recommended that he be removed from the post he was holding at the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), but he’s your PermSec and you have not questioned his qualifications”, Asuquo added.
In his response, Fashola told the lawmakers that “I reply all text messages even if you don’t know and I only met Ron once or so.
“Outside my car normal text responses if he has any other text messages please publish it and let the whole world read it.
“It is not my place to tell you who to hire or not to hire the man has not hurt me in any way and I never in anyway exceeded my delegated authority.
“We simply followed directives from the presidency on how the MD of TCN was employed and I did not in any way abuse my delegated authority to appoint an MD. We requested for an interim appointment and they told us the minimum scope was 12 months.
