Senate gives Customs 7 days to recover auctioned $3 billion NIPP equipment

THE Senate Committee on Power yesterday ordered the immediate retrieval of all the 17 containers belonging to the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) said to have been auctioned by the Nigerian Customs Service,NCS
The Committee also gave the Comptroller General, Nigeria Custom Services, Alhaji Ahmed Dikko Nigeria Customs Service seven days to return the equipment worth $3 billion the NIPP admitted it sold to a private company.
Giving the order yesterday at a meeting with officials of the Nigerian customs, Ministry of Power and other government agencies in the power sector, Chairman Senate Committee on Power, Senator Philip Tanimu Aduda, PDP, FCT however expressed anger
over the refusal of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to honour the summon of the Committee, warning that she must appear to explain why the containers stayed in the Ports for three years until they were sold in 2009.



Chairman and members of Senate Committee on Power, said they were prepared to jail those involved in the scandal if they failed to return them to the federal government.
The senate also ruled yesterday that the suspension of some officers in connection with the deal and the setting up of a committee by Vice President Namadi Sambo to probe the transaction was not enough, just as the lawmakers argued that there might be no evidence at the end of the day that such officials were suspended.
The Committee also directed the Nigerian Customs Service and the NIPP Managing Director, Mr James Olotu who presented two different documents bearing separate names and addresses of the buyer, to reconcile the name and the address of the buyer, adding that  “in the light of the development the Customs and the NIPP should reconcile among themselves the two names that appeared on their papers.”