The $10 million gas processing deal involving the Ministry of Finance, the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, Calabar Generation Company Limited and Accugas Limited will come under scrutiny as soon as the Senate constitutes its committee on Power.
This senate agreed to take this step following a motion sponsored by Senator Aniekan Bassey (from PDP, Akwa Ibom), saying that the gas supply agreement is disadvantageous for Nigeria but the process of getting the country out of the agreement further plunged the nation into another problem.
The Senate subsequently urged the Federal Government to ensure due diligence in the preparation and execution of transaction agreements with investors to avoid the scenario the government is facing under the Gas Supply Agreement (GSA) with Accugas and several other entities.
The lawmakers said the deal which involved the sum of $10 million is not a small amount of money.
The Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, having listened to the motion carefully subsequently referred the motion to the Committee of Power (when constituted) to look into the matter.
In 2020, Accugas issued a “notice of non-payment” to the then-administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari over outstanding invoices to the tune of $15.8 million.
This is the first step in activating the World Bank partial risk guarantee (PRG) signed by the Federal Government under the GSA.