News
At Last, Senate Adopts BPE Probe
Report
...
Asks Jonathan to Sack Onagoruwa
...Wants Folio Communications to Hands off Daily Times
....Revokes Sale of Transcorp Hilton, Abuja Sheraton
In a bold move Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate adopted the
recommendations of its adhoc committee that probed the
commercialization and privatization activities of Bureau of
Public Enterprises (BPE).
The report had recommended the immediate removal of the Director
General of BPE, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa for gross incompetence in
the management of the Bureau and for the illegal and fraudulent
sale of five percent of Federal government residual shares in
Eleme Petrochemicals Company amongst other transactions.
Also the senators asked that; “The NCP should rescind the sale
of Daily Times of Nigeria to Folio Communications Limited in
keeping with the court judgments in suit (1) FHC/L/CP/1328/2009,
(2) FHC/L/CP/244/10, (3) FHC/L/CP/130/2010.
“The sales of assets of Daily Times Nigeria Plc by Folio
Communications Limited and its directors should be investigated
by anti-graft agencies and the sold assets recovered," the
report specifically demanded.
The Senate also asked the buyers of Nicon Insurance to refund
with interest N900 million to the Federal government being money
paid by BPE on February 2007 as contribution for
recapitalization with accrued interest.
The former Director General of BPE Dr. Julius Bala would also be
investigated by anti graft agencies for giving approval to Folio
Communication Limited for the illegal sale of assets of Daily
Times Nigeria PLC.
The upper chamber also endorsed the recommendation to reprimand
past DGs of BPE, especially the pioneer DG, Nasir el-Rufai, for
contravening the Act and reporting directly to the President.
Furthermore, the NCP was asked to reverse the sale of Transcorp
Hilton as the owners have not kept to the terms of agreement
regarding the sale.
“The NCP should rescind the sale of Transcorp Hilton for failure
of the core investor to deliver on the following fundamental
provisions of the Share Purchase Agreement/Post Acquisition
Plans. *Construction of a shopping mall within the hotel
grounds. *Construction of short/long stay serviced apartments on
the available land within the hotel premises to cater for
corporate and similar clients whose needs may not be met by the
typical hotel service structure.*Construction of state of the
art office complex for short stay guests who may have need for
office infrastructure outside their immediate offices and *
development of an amusement emporium to add to the hospitality
profile of the hotel.”
Senate President, David Mark apparently miffed by media reports
that the Senate had backed down on debating the report said, “It
is not the lot of the senate to implement the recommendations,
it is left for the executive to implement the recommendations.
“I hope those who have been insinuating that the Senate has been
trying to avoid discussing the report now know what we can do,
nobody forced us to carry out investigation, we did it on our
own and nobody made efforts to stampede us. There was no time
the report was withdrawn because of conflict with the senators,
the Senate is one.”
All the recommendations of the Ahmad Lawan led Committee were
all approved by the Senators who had held a closed-door meeting
before the consideration of report.
Recall that the Adhoc Committee on BPE presented its report to
the Senate on 23rd November 23, 2011 after three months of
investigations into the activities of the agency.
THEWILL
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