P&ID: Nigerian Government Speaks On $9.6bn Judgment Debt Ruling

P&ID: Nigerian Government Speaks On $9.6bn Judgment Debt Ruling

The minister recalled that one of the challenges the administration faced as soon as it came on board for the second tenure was the slamming of the judgment debt on the country.

“The world and Nigeria were gripped with the fear that our foreign assets, our oil will be attached and investors were panicked, that was when we started our campaign.

“We were quite cleared on our mind that this matter will be won not just in the court of law but also in the court of public opinion,” he said.

The minister said the government took proactive steps to assure investors that the government would contest the ruling and no dime would be paid.

He said the steps were to instil confidence in the investors that Nigeria is safe for investment and they should not disinvest in the country.

“After that, we held several press conferences in which we, once again, assured Nigerians that we were going to robustly challenge the judgment.
“As soon as we finished with the domestic audience, we moved to the UK in a team to let the world know that the entire P&ID contract was a sham.“Pat on the backThe minister gave kudos to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, for a very brilliant team he set up to prosecute the case.On Aug. 16, 2019, a UK Business & Property Courts (the Commercial Court), presided by Justice Butcher, had approved that P&ID should enforce a March 20, 2013 award against Nigeria by a District Circuit Court in Washington DC.The court ordered a $9.6 billion judgment debt against Nigeria over the botched 20-year Gas and Supply Processing Agreement (GSPA) with P&ID.In a ruling, the court authorised the (P&ID), a little known Irish engineering and project management company, to seize $9.6 billion in Nigerian assets over the failed contract.The court ruling was a fallout of the contract purportedly entered into in 2010 between the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and P&ID and the subsequent award made in July 2015 in favour of the P&ID, by an arbitration panel sitting in London.In the failed contract, the P&ID was to build a gas processing facility to refine associated natural gas into non-associated gas to power the national electric grid.For its part, the Ministry was to build a pipeline to supply gas to the P&ID facility to be located in Adiabo, Odukpani LGA, Cross River State.The agreement went sour because the company, which, did not build any facility at the agreed site, blamed the Ministry for not constructing the pipeline for gas supply alleging that it had committed $40 million into the contract.(NAN)