October 31, 2008
President Yar’Adua’s special relationship with the Germans was initially thought to be based on his personal health condition as his medical history is very comprehensive in German hospital (s).
However, it is not clear whether he equally has a comprehensive economic history in the country or he is merely courting the Germans on health grounds.
The newly signed, Nigeria-German Energy Partnership Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), between the federal government and four German energy firms would have ordinarily been a well celebrated venture by President Umaru Yar’Adua in his effort to actualize his power emergency chant but for a very black spot in the conscription- the involvement of Siemens.
Allegedly as part of its intervention measures in the nation’s crippled power sector, President Yar’Adua on Tuesday 19 August 2008 signed an energy partnership agreement with a German consortium of four firms. Siemens, which was suspended and had its supply contract cancelled in December 2007 for allegedly offering $14m bribe to Nigerian officials, also got juicy contracts.
Siemens will serve as the lead engineer in the projects to provide six units of Small Bonny Light Crude Oil/HFO turbines in Kaduna State by 2010 and to add three new turbines and waste recovery boilers/steam turbines at Geregu by 2011 and 2014.
Last year, this same Yar’Adua- led Presidency suspended all forms of awards of new project contracts to Siemens following allegations of corruption leveled against the company at a public inquest in its home country, Germany. The suspension according to the Presidency was to enable the federal government investigate the allegations.
The Federal Government blacklisted siemens on December 6 2007, following the company’s indictment by a German court, which also imposed a 201 million Euros fine for bribing Nigerian, Russian and Libyan government officials to secure juicy telecommunications contracts.
The company was alleged to have paid about 10 million Euros to some past Nigerian Ministers of Communications and other government officials. The German court in its October 4, 2007 ruling listed former communications ministers Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Dr. Bello Halliru Mohammed, Chief Cornelius Adebayo and Alhaji Haruna Elewí.
Also, a serving senator, Prof Jibril Aminu was listed as a beneficiary among the alleged bribe recipients. The honourable senator, as was expected from him, stepped down and called for a thorough investigation of the allegation.
However, how and when the senate and the Presidency carried out this inquest has remained at best blurred and at worst obscured.
Interestingly, the accused senator, Prof Aminu is a member of the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes. Anyway, that is just an aside.
Commendably, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), in the heat of the bribery scandal, launched a probe. The Federal Government also cancelled a N128.4million contract already awarded to Siemens for the supply of circuit breakers and other power generation accessories to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Afraid that the federal government’s stance on the bribe scandal may ultimately damage its business relations with the Nigerian government, a top Siemens’ executive delegation led by the firm’s Executive Vice President in charge of Africa, Dr. Siegfried Russwurn, and the Counselor in the German Embassy in Nigeria, Mr. Mathias Veltin, visited President Umaru Yar’adua in Abuja in February this year and pleaded for forgiveness in their fraudulent approach to doing business with the Nigerian government officials. The delegation also made a commitment that the company would eschew corruption in its future business dealings in Nigeria.
President Yar’Adua who had been advocating zero tolerance for corruption promised an investigation into the allegations that Siemens paid 10million Euros in bribes to Nigerian officials, between 2001 and 2004.
However, until now, it was not clear as to how far the federal government’s investigations into the matter had gone and whether Siemens has been exonerated or pardoned and this is where the entire crux of the matter lies.
Nigerians would want to know whether President Yar’Adua has pardoned and/or lifted the sanctions placed on the German firm as a result of the messy and damaging bribe scandal involving it and some Nigerian government officials- past and serving.
It is very necessary to clarify this issue because you cannot be investigating a firm that had agreed of wrong doings and at the same time be awarding very lucrative energy contracts to the same firm.
Instead of investigating the weighty allegations of fraud and bribery against government officials, more contracts are being awarded to the same firm. Something must have happened or is happening somewhere and Nigerians deserve to know from their president that has zero tolerance for corruption. Why the sudden reversal of an earlier sanction?
Another big issue in the recently signed Nigeria-German Energy Partnership Memorandum of Understanding is the lifespan of the pact. The MoU has a 12-year lifespan during which Siemens and four other German companies are to execute several power projects in different parts of Nigeria.
President Yar’Adua claimed that the goal of the deal was to increase Nigeria’s total electricity generation by an additional 6,500 megawatts (mw) between now and 2020.
The question is: Where does this German arrangement fit in the federal government’s avowed emergency intervention in the near -total collapsed power sector? Can anybody rightly justify a 12-year development plan as an intervention not to even talk of emergency?
Who will source and/or supply the coal and natural gas fuel feedstock highlighted in the MoU? Do we expect the German consortium to resuscitate the moribund mines belonging to the Nigerian Coal Corporation or go into direct mining of the vast coal deposits lying in the geological stretch from Ebonyi through Enugu to Benue and even beyond?
These are all crucial questions that deserve answers to help Nigerians assess the seriousness or otherwise of the President’s widely -trumpeted emergency in power sector.
A vexed commentator rightly captured the dramatic turn of events as he said: “This is the rule of law we have heard so much about. A company says I am guilty of corruption with your former officers and a government that swears by “rule of law” and says they are anti-corruption and has only achieved probes with no result in 15 months does not even probe the company or the allegations against the officials.
“Then seven months later the “rule of law” government awards contract to the same company. So they can bribe more officials, abi?”
So what does this really tells the world about Nigeria’s seriousness over the fight against corruption?
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