Railways: Reps, Amaechi In Ego, Superiority ‘War’ Over $33bn Chinese Loans 

Members of the House of Representatives and the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, engaged in an ego war on Monday as lawmakers proceeded with the probe of the loans the Federal Government sourced from China to execute railway contracts in the country.

The probe had lately been the cause of squabbles between Amaechi and the legislators, with the former arguing that it could delay the completion of the projects on the scheduled dates.

He had asked the lawmakers to halt the probe in order not to discourage the Chinese from assisting Nigeria.

It was understandably a tensed atmosphere on Monday when Amaechi appeared before the House Committee on Treaties, Protocols and Agreements chaired by Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai at the National Assembly.

The committee accused the government of signing contracts of over $33 billion on what it called “empty” documents, claiming that there was also no concrete agreements to back them up.

The minister did not only dismiss the allegation, he also refused to be boxed into a corner along a particular line of questioning.

While Ossai said the committee could ask questions as it chose to do, the minister insisted he would not respond in the manner the lawmakers wanted him to do.

He also objected to Ossai’s idea that the chairman, ahead of other committee members, must continue to grill him (Amaechi).

Responding to the claim that the ministry signed $33bn contracts, Amaechi said the record available to him showed that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari signed a $1.6bn loan for the Lagos/Ibadan railway project, while his predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan, signed another $800m loan.

However, he asked the lawmakers to produce any evidence to back the $33bn claim.

But, not satisfied, Ossai took time to bash the executive and the minister, saying that due process was skipped in several instance, while the National Assembly was also wrongly portrayed as being the setback to the railway projects.

The chairman went on, “We have also noted comments on the facts that National Assembly approved these loans, so why turn around to probe it now? Well, I remember stating in our last meeting here, that executive scrutiny and oversight by the legislature on government policies, programmes and projects can be done at the beginning, during implementation and at the end of implementation.

“From our experience, the MDAs sign these commercial agreements in billions of dollars, then go the President and Federal Executive Council for approval to execute including securing loan facilities through Ministry of Finance and Debt Management Office (DMO) and then proceed to negotiate the terms of these loans before coming back to Mr. President who then writes the National Assembly asking for approval for billions of dollars to do projects without attaching the negotiated loan and commercial contracts agreements details.

“This approach is the reason we have government representatives signing empty pages of loan agreements repayment schedule and other key documents required for the loan agreements to become effective. We have commercial contracts signed in US Dollars, while the loan agreements for the execution of the same contracts were signed in Chinese YUAN currency in Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy/Galaxy Backbone Limited.

“We have also seen references made in the commercial contracts regarding BOQs but none of‘ the commercial, contracts agreements submitted to us especially by Ministry of Transport has a single BOQ attachment…

“We have noticed from documents available to us that commercial contracts process signed by Federal Ministry of Transport alone within this is over $33 billion without any clear cut financing arrangements.

” Most of these commercial contracts agreements didn’t also have local content clauses and we’re witnessed by none properly designated and authorised officials.”

Amid the ensuing disagreement between the two sides, the Speaker, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, stepped in to calm down the two sides.