$151m Paris Club refund: Why I petitioned EFCC against Abia govt, officials – Witness
By GODWIN TSA, Abuja
A star witness in the suit against the Abia State Government over alleged breached of contract bordering on the Paris Club Refund opened up on Wednesday on why operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) invaded the state.
The witness, Maurice Ibe, the Group Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Mauritz Walton Nig Ltd, told a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, the invasion followed a petition he wrote to the Commission against the Abia State Government and some of its officials.
Ibe was cross-examined by counsel to Ziplon Concept (4th defendant) Jeff Njikeonye, SAN, in a suit filed by Mauritz Walton against the Abia State Government.
Other defendants in the suit are the Accountant General of Abia state, a bank and Ziplon Concept.
Mauritz Walton sued the Abia Government for refusing to pay it an agreed 30 per cent of the sum of $151,410,816.39 being refund of the over deduction from Abia state foreign loan portfolio by the Federal Government.
Upon cross-examination, Dr Ibe confirmed he was engaged by the then governor Theodore Orji to determine, reconcile and recover the sum of $151m USD which was owed to the state government.
However, the payment of the 30 per cent has become subject to litigation, upon which the revelation by Dr Ibe was made.
The plaintiff in his testimony told the court that along the line, the Abia Government brought in the 4th defendant (Ziplon) claiming it had renegotiated with it to carry out the job for the state.
‘My Lord, the 4th defendant wrote to the plaintiff that the State government will accept to pay the fee if he accepts a 40/60% sharing formula.
‘The Abia State Government offered N250m to me and the 4th defendant (Ziplon) in the presence of Jeff Njikonye (counsel to the 4th defendant), and representatives of the Government of Abia State.
‘In the meeting, it was revealed that Ziplon had already been paid the sum of N100m and the issue became of what happens to the N250 million offered.
‘The then Accountant General of Abia State was shocked to learn that I did not know that N100m had been disbursed to Ziplon.
‘If I recall vividly, counsel to the 4th defendant interjected and said the N100m was given to the former governor.
‘At that point, I told him, I will not be part of money laundering for any individual or entity because of my career and profession.
‘Based on the foregoing, I proceeded to write a petition to the EFCC against the Abia state government and some of its officials. Investigation is ongoing,’ Dr Ibe told the court.
The plaintiff posited that he rejected the offer because “it was with bad intent, deceitful and in bad fate, and I did not even consider it.’
The plaintiff told the court that all he needed and had asked the Abia state government and the 4th defendant (Ziplon) to do, is for them to provide him, “be it a sheet of paper, documents etc that showed the 4th defendant did a legitimate job as per recovery of the excess deductions.
‘If they do, we can then know how to apply the sharing formula, but till today no evidence, not even a single piece of paper, has been presented as work product.’
In the suit marked: FCT/HC/CV/2470/2017, filed by Charles Ude, the plaintiff is seeking the order of the court to make the Abia Government pay Mauritz Walton Nig.Ltd, the sum of N12 billion being the consulting fee for the Paris Club Refund Abia state debt reconciliation with the federal government.
The firm said the Abia Government had engaged it to pursue the refund of excess deductions on foreign loans and miscellaneous charges in exchange for a certain per cent of any fund recovered.
The witness has earlier explained that the contract to reconcile debt owed Abia State government by the federal government was an irregular one.
Answering a question whether the contract went through the tender board, competitive bidding and evaluation or if he appeared before any committee, Ibe said:
‘I was never asked to appear before any committee. The process of consultancy for the Paris Club Refund was never at any point in time seen or recorded as a regular contract as it was never tendered or went through the procurement board. The contract was based on my proposal written to every state in the country when on another assignment
“I stumbled on the debt profile of each state, from information gathered by forensic audit, and put it in form of a proposal I wrote the states. This was reviewed fully and thoroughly by each state. They engaged me to further review what we have proposed to them, to determine the veracity of what we have put to them through the Ministry of Finance, Debt Management Office (DMO) and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF).
‘So it was not a general contract tendered, that would go through the procurement process. At no time throughout the process that a state government, Abia or any other, asked me to appear before any committee to ratify the contract.’
Meanwhile, counsel to the plaintiff Isaac Anumudu objected to the filing of a statement of defence by the 4th defendant, Ziplon Concept, represented by Jeff Nijokonye, SAN.
Anumudu argued that the defendant since two years ago abandoned the case, thereby forfeiting his rights to be part of the case.
He held that the rule of the court allows for 21 days to respond to a matter, unlike the instance case where the 4th defendant abandoned the case and suddenly reappeared to file a statement of defence without any application to file out of time.
He said by proceedings of March 26, 2019, the 4th defendant had waived his right to file processes. He said coming now to simply dumped the process on the court without asking for an extension of time to file was incompetent.
He stated further that when the counsel was asked if he needed 21 days to respond to the plaintiff’s processes, he said he didn’t intend to respond and so didn’t need any time because he said he wanted the case to move fast. (Daily Sun)
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