SAN FRANCISCO, October 16, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, has given the management of Intels Nigeria Limited, INTELS, an oil and gas logistics firm belonging to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, three months to round off and hand over the pilotage services to the authority.
This was as a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Timi Frank, stated that the recent travails of INTELS was a deliberate attempt by agencies of the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to intimidate and truncate the perceived ambition of Atiku to contest the 2019 Presidential election.
But addressing journalists in Lagos on Monday, NPA Managing Director Ms Hadiza Bala Usman explained that the termination of the Pilotage Agency Agreement, PAA, and the handing over became imperative because the company has allegedly refused to comply with the Treasury Single Account, TSA, of the Federal Government.
She added that the agency had in the last 14 months persuaded INTELS to comply with the extant law, but the company allegedly rebuked entireties made to it.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami SAN had on September 27 written to Usman,
directing her to terminate the boats pilotage monitoring and supervision agreement the NPA had with INTELS on the ground that the contract violates the Constitution of the Federal Republic.
Aside arguing that the agreement with INTELS violates section Sections 80 (1) of the constitution, the NPA boss stated that 28 per cent commission the company receives for the monitoring and supervision of pilotage services it handles on behalf of the agency on the nation’s territorial waters was on the high side.
In its reaction, INTELS said the termination of the agreement was “clearly preposterous and the consequences highly injurious” to the interests of the country.
A letter signed by its director, Mr. Silvano Bellinato, said the position of NPA on the agreement may force INTELS to reconsider its multibillion dollar investment at the Badagry deep seaport in Lagos, an investment he said has the potential of creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians.
INTELS gave NPA seven days from last Wednesday, to reconsider the residual critical areas of their agreement and to agree, to the possible extent, on a common solution, failure of which it shall head to arbitration.
The company also claimed that the NPA is indebted to it to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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