$418m absurd fees: Desperate consultants unrelenting, By Yemi Adebowale

The six consultants aiming to grab a massive US$418 million state and local government money, supposedly for facilitating refunds of the over-deductions on their accounts by the federal government in obligations to Paris Club, are not in any way relenting in their desperate bid. They are on an appalling advocacy spree. It is shocking that these consultants are not sober despite facts showing that their demands are absurd.

One of them brazenly declared last week that the consultancy fees were legitimately earned and owed his firm for services rendered. The promoter of the firm said: “The outstanding fees owed my firm with regards to last work done for the states is approximately US$68 million.” This particular consultant even avowed that his original consultancy fees “calculated based on agreed terms” was well in excess of US$300 million and that he gave huge discounts to the states and local governments on this entitlement, to accept only US$68 million. This is clearly a world record discount from a Father Christmas.

This consultant claims he engaged various experts – chartered accountants, forensic experts, inquiry agents, lawyers – for the jobs, some dating back to 2003 when Obasanjo was president. But he did not indicate that he had a contract with all the state governors and local government chairmen when the jobs commenced. He kept mentioning the then Chairman of the Nigeria’s Governors Forum (NGF), and former governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), as a body.

That was why the current NGF leadership rightly queried if all the local governments in Nigeria engaged him directly as claimed “and if he acted for the states through his lawyers, and the NGF requested that he extends the services to all the states as also claimed.”

A clear picture of what each of the consultants is asking for has also emerged. The correct break down of the $418 million demanded by the six consultants for the bizarre job is: $68,658,192.83; $159,000,000; $47,831,920; $142,028,941.95; $1,219,440.45 and $215,195.36, totaling USD$418,953,690.59

In the 2017 consent judgement talked about by one of the consultants, it was also Yari that he claimed signed for the governors. This desperate consultant admitted that there was a federal government committee constituted in 2015 to reconcile deductions for the Paris Club exit payment. But he did not admit that the report of that committee dated May 2007 paved the way for the refunds to the states and local governments. Representatives of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Central Bank of Nigeria, Debt Management Office (DMO) and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) constituted the committee.

So, where are the consultants in all of these? As the NGF rightly stated last week, “private persons who were not privy could not have been included in a committee that was meant to examine purely public financial records. It was this committee that did all the work now claimed by the consultants.”

The truth that must be told is that the services the desperate consultants claim to have offered are contained in the FAAC Reconciliation Committee Report constituted in 2005 and submitted in 2007, with recommendations on how states and LGAs should be refunded the excess deductions from the Paris Club repayments. The documents are still there.

Another interesting thing about this bid to fleece the states and local government is that all the consultants claim to have rendered the same or similar service of helping the states and local governments recover the over-deductions. This is ludicrous.

My take away from the response of the current leadership of the NGF to the consultants last week is: “While it is possible that the unlawful scheme hatched by the consultants to feast on public funds may have over the years been executed with the cooperation of enemies of the State without anyone raising an eyebrow; the bubble has now burst and the time to account has come.”

I guess one of those the NGF is talking about here is the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, who has suddenly become the Attorney General of the consultants. He is one state agent backing the consultants with all his might for selfish reasons.

This minister has refused to face the fact that one of the consultants, a beneficiary of a $142 million Promissory Note, lost his case for payment of the consultancy fee at the High Court and Court of Appeal, and further appealed to the Supreme Court, where he also lost.

The Supreme Court on June 3, 2022 dismissed the appeal as lacking in merit and also made it clear that neither the NGF nor ALGON has the power to award contracts and charge same directly to the Federation Account as done in this case.

The apex court ruled: “The funds belonging to a state or local government must be kept in an account belonging to the state or local government as the case may be and disbursed or expended by the state strictly in the manner and for the purposes prescribed in the Constitution and an appropriation law or as prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State and in the manner and for purposes prescribed in the Constitution, a local government law, or as prescribed by the Council of the local government.”

The dismissal of this case by the Supreme Court also clearly affects payments to all the consultants who were likewise beneficiaries of Promissory Notes by the DMO.

I’m earnestly waiting for former governor Yari’s response to a long list of inglorious roles in this Paris Club refund debacle. One desperate consultant alleged that Yari, on behalf of NGF, cornered $105.9 million from the refunds to the states and local government (in the name of consultancy fees) and diverted it to fund elections in three states. There were also cases of all sorts of consultants popping up and being used to siphon parts of the refunds to the states and local governments. Yari developed a parallel scheme to misappropriate the consultancy fees. That was the summary of the grave allegations against this ex-Zamfara governor. Still waiting for his response.

First published by Thisday Newspaper