The House of Representatives Committee on Public Asset and Special Duties has issued a 7-day ultimatum to Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to submit relevant documents pertaining to all its current public-private-partnership (PPP) arrangements.
The committee issued the ultimatum on Thursday in Abuja at a public hearing on the need to investigate and assess the performances of PPP programmes and concession.
Chairman of the committee, Rep. Ademorin Kuye (APC-Lagos), said that the ultimatum had become necessary, following the corporation’s failure to submit the documents, as earlier requested.
Kuye said that documents on all the agreements relating to each asset of PPP and programmes, concessions and lease agreements, with commencement dates, should be submitted.
He said that documents on evidence of remittances to the Special Concession Account, income profile from PPPs/Concession/Lease, and specific achievements recorded by the period under reference should also be tendered.
The chairman asked the NRC management to ender documents and evidence of advertisement of PPPs/concession/lease and expression of interests on the leases.
According to him, the committee is also interested in the documents on the challenges, problems and constraints of mandate implementation and recommendations to enhance improvement.
Kuye said that a sworn affidavit attesting that the documents/information submitted were true should equally be attached.
He said that the committee would like to see the budget performance of the corporation from 2021 till date.
The lawmaker said that they needed to see the items budgeted for and the level of implementation of all projects in the forthcoming oversight.
He also demanded for a detailed report from the NRC on a trending video which showed a yet-to-be identified individual carting away the corporation’s assets from one of the train stations in the country.
Kuye said that information available to the committee suggested that such criminal activities were allegedly carried out in Niger, Bauchi, Nasarawa and Lagos, among other states in the country.
He said that the committee would do all that was required to ensure that perpetrators and their accomplices were made to answer for their actions.
“Failure to submit these documents and reports on or before Dec. 11, 2024 would force the committee to invoke its constitutional powers against the NRC,” he said.
Responding, the acting Managing Director of NRC, Mr Benjamin Iloanusi, apologised to the committee for not submitting all the required documents earlier.
Iloanusi blamed the failure on what he called miscommunication, saying that they had submitted documents in accordance with the earlier letter received.
He, however, appealed for time to enable the corporation to submit the detailed documents, as requested by the committee.
The lawmaker also urged the committee to share the trending video to enable him to carry out internal investigations with a view to locating the station and the individuals involved.