While admitting that the government defaulted on the agreed terms, Colins told SaharaReporters that it would have been impossible for a gas pipeline to be constructed without no work being done on the building of the processing plant.
Abayomi Collins, Chairman of the Committee on Water Resources in the sixth House of Representatives, has called on Process and Industrial Development and the Nigerian government, to produce the schedule of milestones they reached in the breached gas contract.
While admitting that the government defaulted on the agreed terms, Colins told SaharaReporters that it would have been impossible for a gas pipeline to be constructed without no work being done on the building of the processing plant.
“First, what are the obligations of PID and the parties to the contract? PID's Primary obligation is the construction of the gas processing plant to which the FGN's is to supply wet gas for processing,” Collins explained.
“Yes the gas pipeline was not constructed, what about the processing plant, has it been constructed?"
“Let the parties bring out the project schedule of the milestone on deliverables. This must be part of the contract agreement of this scale, that will show which of the parties is at fault and to what extent. You don't construct a pipeline to deliver gas without activities on the process plant on-going. Colins who owns a construction company that works in the water resource and oil and gas sectors said the ‘matrix of responsibilities', will give a clear picture to where the fault lines are.
“What is the level of project execution and construction by PID. Must the gas pipeline be completed before the processing plant commenced? Let PID publish the level of their delivery to the project vis Engineering documents, equipment ordered and other materials procurements, etc.
"The agreement will be incomplete without the matrix of responsibilities and deliveries by parties. It is impossible to have such an agreement that is not backed by the division of responsibilities of the parties. That will amount to big scale fraud and scam… built into the Agreement ab initio.”
The former lawmaker also accused the federal government of breaching local contracts often.
He described the P&ID agreement default as a watershed moment for legal institutions to evaluate the government’s frequent abuse of local contract agreements.
“Many local contract agreements are defaulted by governments at all levels, with impunity. Contracts are awarded and agreement in place, signed and sealed, while governments will not appropriate funds for many years of their yearly budget appropriations. Hardly will you find local contract agreements that are without defaults by governments. This is a good case, avenue and opportunity for our legal institutions to properly reflect and address the issues of governments abuse of contract agreements.”
Colins added, “If the FGN arbitrators failed to identify and insist on the failure of PID to construct or commence on the procurement of gas facility which is part of their obligations to the contract, then something must have happened.”