BY TOM OKPE
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets and Special Duties has queried the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, over the Ministry’s Public, Private Partnership, PPP, programme and concession agreement aimed at improving healthcare in the country.
The Committee probed the BioVaccines Nigeria Limited, which is a joint venture between the Federal Government and May and Baker, MB, in 2007 and other partnerships by the Ministry.
It also, directed that the Minister must submit relevant documents, including evidence of advertisement of this PPPs/concession/lease, expression of interest on the leases as well as specific achievements, recorded by the Ministry in the period under reference.
The Committee Chairman, Rep Ademorin Kuye, made these known at the Committee Public Hearing at the National Assembly, Abuja on Tuesday.
Kuye said the Minister should provide the documents supporting the Ministry’s N10b equity contribution, directing that the Minister must also, provide relevant documents over lease of land to M&B in Lagos and tender a document of transfer of shares to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, MOFI.
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He said, “I also want to bring to your notice that part of the document submitted, equity contribution of the Federal Government is N10bn.
“We take it as part of the information and documents that will be submitted alongside pending documents. We want to know where that money is, the utilization of the funds, when the money is being released, where the money has been domiciled.
“Also part of the agreement, Government gave out a landed property in Lagos. We want to have comprehensive documents of the agreement and document of the property, the landed property, to be submitted to this Committee as well.
“We also, want you to clarify to us in your next appearance the share capital of Federal Government and that of the partners, we want documents showing in detail how the shares have been domiciled, what is for the Federal Government and the percentage that belongs to the Government and that of the partners.”
The Minister pleaded to be given till the next sitting to provide the relevant documents.
“The Ministry has taken due steps to collect documents that are available, but there are still, I believe, important gaps.
“I would like to plead with the Committee in order to be very thorough in terms of completeness of what you have requested, that we be given more time to be able to come back to the Committee with response that is vetted.
“I would like to personally vet all documents, before they are submitted to you and where they are not in existence to be able to come back to you. As you can understand, many of these were entered into years, before we came into office and we are dealing with residue of some of those agreements which I believe, have been shared with you, but admittedly, the information is incomplete.
“So, I will not want to share information with you that is incomplete. And we are working very hard to ensure that we collect all the information that is required and come back to you with indication of what we have and the gaps that exist in what we have inherited.
“In the context of this process, I plead with the Committee to give us more time and I will personally ensure that we compile things, accurately and with a tabulation of when the agreements were made,” he said.
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