Senate to investigate multi-billion naira Ministry of Interior’s contract with CONTEC
By Tunde Opalana
The Senate’s joint committee on Finance and National Planning has called for a full-scale investigation into the contract between the Ministry of Interior and Continental Transfer Technique Limited (CONTEC) for combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Alien Card (CERPAC), to which the nation has been losing billions of naira on yearly basis since 2007.
The chairman of the Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West), demanded a probe of the contract on Wednesday while presiding at the beginning of a five-day Public Hearing on the 2021-2023 MTEF/FSP at the National Assembly, Abuja.
The committee said it requires a comprehensive investigation to unravel the alleged fraudulent contract the Ministry of Interior signed with CONTEC in 2007 on residence permit for expatriates.
The committee members were taken aback with submissions made by the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mohammed Babandede that CONTEC through the lopsided contract agreement, cornered a whopping ₦15 billion out of ₦20 billion realised in 2018 and ₦23 billion out of ₦40 billion realised in 2019.
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The immigration boss, however, informed the Committee that NIS was already in a discussion with the Ministry of Justice for necessary advice on the legal implications of the upward review of the resident permit fee from $1,000 to $2,000.
He said the Ministry of Justice is already looking at the modalities to pull out of the contract agreement.
Daily Times recalled that a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, had in March last year dragged CONTEC and Nigeria Ministry of Interior to court for stoppage of the alleged fraudulent contract.
Falana had in the suit challenged the constitutionality of the CERPAC contract to CONTEC as well as the upward review of the CERPAC fee from $1,000 to $2,000 last December.
In Nigeria, CERPAC is mandatory for expatriates. It allows them to live and work in the country.
According to Falana as stated in the suit “To ‘fix and collect’ CERPAC fee is a statutory responsibility of the Nigeria Immigration Service in line with sections 20 and 37 of the Immigration Act.”
