Joe Johnson
The Nigerian Senate is set to probe details of a lopsided contract between the Federal Government and a foreign Information Technology company, Continental Transfert Technique Limited which grants the company 72% of accruable revenues from the issuance of “Residence Permit”, to expatriate.
The Senate decision to investigate the contract agreement followed an alarm raised by the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service(NIS), Mohammed Babandede that Nigeria was being ripped off by the current contract terms with Contec Global.
The CG of (Nig. Immigration) revealed the ” badly conceived contract” as the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning began to consider the details of the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework(MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper(FSP); with a view to open more revenue sources to finance Nigeria’s N12 trillion budget for 2021.
The Nigerian government through the Ministry of Interior signed the contract with Contec Global in 2007, with a sharing formula that allowed the technical partner to collect ($720), representing 72% on every $1,000 paid for Residence Permit.
The contract was however reviewed in 2019 with a 100% increase in the fees from $1,000 to $2,000); but still leaving Contec Global with a “Lion Share” of 55%.
In the new arrangement, 33% goes to the Federal Government; 7% for the Nigeria Immigration Service and the remaining 5% for the Ministry.
The Immigration boss asked that the Federal Government should revoke the contract which saw Contec Global cornering $15 billion out of $20billion in 2018 and another $23 billion from $40billion in 2019.
He said Contec Global “is a bad company” that doesn’t mean well for Nigeria and that no reasonable Nigerian citizen should support what the company is doing.
Babandede told the Senate Panel that “Contec Global” had even taken Nigeria to a British Court; asking to take over the NNPC Corporate Headquarters in Abuja and making a claim of N8billion.
He said there was no justification for increasing the fee for Residence Permit; pointing out that the situation has forced expsrtariates to go into “arranged marriages”” with Nigerian ladies to avoid paying the exorbitant fees.
“We have taken the case to the Ministry of Justice. It’s very unfair for a company to be taking such a huge amount of money without doing anything especially as the job can be effectively carried out by the immigration service”, he said.
In his contribution, Senator Gershom Basset(PDP Cross River South), called for a full blown investigation into the allegations by the Immigration Comptroller-General when the Senate resumes from its recess.
“We been to set up a full blown investigation into the matter. We need to the bottom of this matter. A situation where we are paying this company and getting little cannot be condoned”, he said.
Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf(APC Taraba North) also called for a thorough inquiry into the activities of the Nigeria Immigration Service especially(NIS) with its technical partners.
The Senate Panel led by Senator Solomon Olamilekan (APC Lagos West); asked the Chief Immigration Officer to furnish the committee with relevant documents that will assist it in its investigation.
Earlier in his opening speech, Olamilekan said that the public hearing will be open to take submissions from all the 50 revenue generating agencies of government in the next 5 days.
He said his Committee will only welcome the Heads or Chief Executives of the various agencies and that any agency that failed to appear before it will not be captured in the budget for 2021.