PandID: FG has begun investigating bribe takers – AGF
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, on Sunday said those named to have taken bribes in relation to the $10bn judgment obtained by the British Virgin Islands firm, Process and Industrial Development, against Nigeria, were being investigated.
Malami, who said this while featuring on Channels Television’s programme, Sunday Politics, also said some of them were being prosecuted. He put the figure of the bribes involved in the controversial P&ID contract at about $301m.
Also his spokesman, Dr Umar Gwandu, had earlier in his response to an inquiry by The PUNCH on Sunday, said all those who collected bribes were being investigated.
A United Kingdom court had, in a landmark judgment, on Friday, granted the Federal Government permission to challenge the final arbitral award delivered by a London arbitration tribunal in favour of P&ID and against Nigeria in January 2017.
The award which stood at $9.6bn as of 2019 has risen to $10bn.
The tribunal had held Nigeria liable for the alleged breach of a Gas Supply Processing Agreement it entered into with the P&ID in 2010.
But the Nigerian government had approached the UK court requesting an extension of time within which to challenge the final arbitral award on the basis that the GSPA and the award were tainted by fraud.
Justice Ross Cranston of the High Court of Queen’s Bench Division of Commercial Court in London, in granting Nigeria’s request on Friday, agreed that there was prima facie case of fraud in the agreements leading to the award which should be inquired into.
The judge named a former Director, Legal Services of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Grace Taiga, as one of those who were allegedly bribed by the promoters of the P&ID to prepare a faulty agreement against Nigeria’s interest.
He also named others whom sources of payments to their bank accounts Nigeria had yet to identify their sources.
Taiga is already being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Apo, Abuja, for receiving bribe through an offshore bank account.
In an SMS sent to one of our correspondents on Sunday, Gwandu said all the named persons “are all under investigation”, while another of the cases “is before the court for determination.”
In the interview on Channels TV, Malami said, “As much as I wouldn’t want to be pre-emptive, the fact still remains that at the local level, some of the principal characters were being investigated, and some were not only investigated but were arraigned and then there were certain convictions recorded. Punch
