President Bola Tinubu has been warned of economic saboteurs in the corridor of power.
The warning was issued by a group, the Nigerian Transparency Initiative for Good Governance and signed by its Executive Director and General Secretary, Sani Ahmed and Henry Nwosu respectively.
The group noted that there are moves by some elements to over rule the President’s decisions, especially in the oil and gas sector.
The group noted that the so called saboteurs are working towards substituting the government approved nine consultants for Pre-shipmebt inspectors and monitoring/evaluation agents for crude oil and gas exports under the Nigerian Export Supervision scheme.
The duo noted that the approved nine firms emerged out of about 81 who applied.
The nine companies approved by the Federal Government are as follows:
1 TROBELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
2 TRUST GLOBAL SERVICES LIMITED
3 KEPCHEREN
4 ROBINSON INTERNATIONAL ENERGY LIMITED
5 MARYDEL NIGERIA LIMITED
6 CANDID OIL SERVICES
7 BEECHSTONE LIMITED
8 GENERAL MARINE AND OIL SERVICES LIMITED
9 PATBON SERVICES LIMITED
Having commenced
extensive work along with their partners, news filtering in has revealed that some top officials with vested interests within the Presidency are trying to reverse the approval and drop the approved consultants in order to bring in their preferred agents through the back door.
The group added, “We believe this moves would be counter productive and inimical to the efforts of President Bola Tinubu to attract investors into the country. The President has in recent times travelled to Europe and Asia to woo investors, nothing should be done to sabotage his efforts.
“Furthermore, a circular obtained from the office of the Minister of Finance shows that the Monitoring and Evaluation Agents(MEAs) that were approved by the Federal Government, are being replaced with new companies that were not part of the bidding process. Most worrisome is the fact that the companies didn’t go through the public procurement process. This is very unhealthy for the industry.
“It is most pathetic that the same companies have not been remitting any revenue to the federal government coffers. This should not be allowed to stand.
“It is the belief of critical stakeholders that if the elements succeed in their unpatriotic agenda, the outcome would be unpalatable for the economy because it would erode investors confidence, create distrust in the system as all the nine approved consultants alreay have their foreign partners on ground and have invested heavily in setting up their offices as required by law.
“We therefore call on President Bola Tinubu to wade into the matter and probe the activities of some interest groups within the Presidency with a view to prevent them from dabbling into already settled matter.
“We also appeal to Mr President to keep a close watch on developments in the oil and gas sector, especially aspects that deal with pre-shipment inspection because whatever happens in the sector alert the international investors and partners on how serious we are as a country in protecting national assets, infrastructures, and agreements.
“We want to commend Mr President so far for the aggressive measures he has taken to revamp the economy. He promised to hit the ground running. So far he has not disappoint. And on the issues we raised, Mr President, please, do not disappoint.”
