{"id":22311,"date":"2019-11-06T16:22:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T15:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=22311"},"modified":"2019-11-06T16:22:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T15:22:25","slug":"relevant-govt-agencies-claim-ignorance-of-pid-contact-court-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=22311","title":{"rendered":"Relevant govt agencies claim ignorance of P&ID contact, court hears"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Toluwanimi Adeeko (NAN)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A principal witness, CSP Umar Babangida,\u00a0 on Wednesday alleged that Grace Taiga, a former director, Legal Services in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources,\u00a0 played a major role in the fraudulent gas supply agrrement between the Federal Government and Petroleum and Industrial Development (P&ID).<\/p>\n

Testifying in an FCT High Court in Abuja, Babangida, informed the court that he led the team that investigated the alleged\u00a0 fraudulent activities of the P&ID.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe opened an investigation as a result of a petition forwarded from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation to the Acting Chairman of EFCC in July 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe team wrote a letter of investigation to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources requesting the Ministry to provide the Gas Supply and processing Agreement dated Jan. 11, 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also asked them to provide the MOU dated July 22, 2009 which was signed between the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and P&ID.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon analysing the two documents, we observed that the MOU was signed by P&ID Nig Ltd while the Gas Supply and Production agreement was signed by P&ID Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Island,\u201d he said..<\/p>\n

He said that the then minister of Petroleum Resources, Deiziani Allison-Madueke signed for the ministry of Petroleum Resources while the defendant witnessed for the ministry.<\/p>\n

\u201dOn the strength of this response, we then wrote a letter to the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC, to confirm if the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) was forwarded to he commission from the Ministry to enable the Federal Executive Council make a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cICRC replied that the GSPA was not forwarded to the commission and the Federal Executive Council had not deliberated on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on their reply, we wrote a letter to the office of the Secretary General, to confirm if the GSPA was forwarded to them for the Federal Executive Council to deliberate on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office of the Secretary General replied that it did not get to them. As a result of this we then wrote to the Bureau of Public Procurement to confirm the role they played.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir response was that after going through their archive and records, they discovered that the Bureau wasn\u2019t contacted in any way and as such wasn\u2019t involved in the agreement.\u201d he said<\/p>\n

The witness also explained that a list of members of the technical team, which Taiga was on, was provided by the ministry.<\/p>\n

Babangida said the defendant voluntarily made a statement in the absence of her lawyer.<\/p>\n

The witness said that Taiga confirmed that the drafted agreement was forwarded to the office of the AGF for vetting which was part of her duty as the director of legal services.<\/p>\n

After the testimony, Mr Ola Olaonipekun, SAN, counsel for the defence prayed the court for an\u00a0 adjournment on the grounds of the defendant\u2019s failing health.<\/p>\n

Justice Olukayode Adeniyi adjourned the case until Dec. 12 for further hearing.<\/p>\n

(Recall)EFCC accused Taiga (of) facilitating the controversial contract and securing gratification to the tune of over 20, 000 dollars while she served at the ministry in 2010.<\/p>\n

She pleaded not guilty and was admitted to bail in the sum of N10 million and two sureties in like sum.<\/p>\n

By www.nan.ng<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Toluwanimi Adeeko (NAN) A principal witness, CSP Umar Babangida,\u00a0 on Wednesday alleged that Grace Taiga, a former director, Legal Services in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources,\u00a0 played a major role in the fraudulent gas supply agrrement between the Federal Government and Petroleum and Industrial Development (P&ID). Testifying in an FCT High Court in Abuja, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[134,135],"class_list":["post-22311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-pid","tag-taiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}