More facts have emerged on the ownership of the private company that the minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, allocated the controversial N42billion in the 2019 budget.
LEADERSHIP investigation revealed that two of the three directors of the firm are serving aides of Enelamah. They are Femi Edun, the special assistant to the minister on Special Economic Zones and Ms. Oluwadara Owoyemi, the special adviser on Investment to Enelamah from 2016 till date.
Even the third director, Dr. Bakari Waringa, is a public servant and serves as director of Finance and Accounts at the Bureau of Public Service Reforms. She is also on the board of Transcorp Hotels Plc.
The trio owns 75 percent equity while the federal government holds 25 percent of the shares of the company, Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited (NSEZCO), which was established in 2018.
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| Dr Okechukwu Enelamah |
The company was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as a private company. But it was listed in the 2019 budget, which the minister presented to the Senate Committee on Industry, Trade, and Investment as a public company on Monday.
Apart from being the minister’s aide, Edun is believed to be the managing director of Frontier Capital. He led the financial advisory practice of Alliance Consulting from its inception until the recent startup of Frontier Capital.
Prior to that, he was responsible for Agusto & Co’s Business Information and Ratings Division until mid-1994 when he took responsibility for its consulting initiatives. He remains a member of Agusto & Co’s Ratings Committee.
Before she became Enelamah’s aide, Owoyemi was the chief operating officer (COO) and director, African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA).
She was appointed a special adviser on Investment to the minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment in 2016.
Owoyemi is currently on leave of absence from the organization.
Reliable sources in the ministry who pleaded anonymity confirmed to LEADERSHIP that Edun is still the special assistant to Enelamah on Special Economic Zones while Owoyemi has been the minister’s special adviser on Investment since 2016.
Edun started his career in 1987 with Akintola Williams & Co (now Akintola Williams Deloitte), initially as an auditor and later as a business and financial adviser.
He graduated from the University of Ife with Second Class Upper Honours in Accounting and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1988. He is a resource person in accounting and finance at the Lagos Business School
The Senate Committee on Industry, Trade, and Investment had on Monday resisted what it described as an attempt by the minister to defraud the government of N42 billion by appropriating the amount to the private company.
The discovery of the illegal company led to the rejection of the ministry’s N15.633 billion estimates for this fiscal year by the committee.
Enelamah had in the course of the presentation on the 2018 budget performance and 2019 proposals to the committee, chaired by Senator Sabo Mohammed (APC Jigawa North West) for approval, presented a booklet containing 2019 budget proposals for the 17 agencies under his ministry.
After his presentation, Senator Mohammed referred him to item 2 on page 7 of the booklet which has N42.091billion allocation for Nigeria Special Economic Zone Company not known to be one of the agencies under the ministry.
In his response, Enelamah said that the company was established through a presidential initiative and approval given it at a cabinet meeting in May 2018.
When asked to name the owners of the company, Enelamah simply mentioned the federal government and other shareholders.
Senator Mohammed, who disagreed with him, pointed out that a document obtained by the committee from CAC containing information on how the company was registered, showed that its name is Nigeria Sez Investment Company Limited and not Nigeria Special Economic Zone Company listed in the documents presented by the minister.
Obviously miffed by the development, Senator Mohammed said the ownership of the company as clearly stated in the document obtained from CAC on the 26th of last month designated Dr. Bakari Wadinga, Mr. Olufemi Edun and Ms. Oluwadara Owoyemi as directors.
He further disclosed that “the document clearly states that the company is a private company and that liabilities of the members are limited by share which as shown, gives the federal government 25 percent and 75 percent to the private individuals.”
But in his response yesterday, through his strategy and communications adviser, Bisi Daniels, the minister insisted that Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited (NSEZCO), was incorporated as a special purpose vehicle to deliver Project MINE (Made in Nigeria for Exports), which is a presidential initiative.
“In June 2018, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved NSEZCO, with the endorsement of the Economic Management Team, as the holding entity for FGN’s investments and proprietary interests in existing and future SEZs.
“The FEC approval also provides that all current and future capital appropriations for Project MINE should be transferred to NSEZCO’s account, as soon as opening formalities are completed.
“With the formalities completed, NSEZCO became the platform through which federal government’s capital budget appropriations for SEZs are converted into long-term value-creating investments,” he explained.
The minister added that by aggregating and harnessing federal government’s investment “in a strong corporate special purpose vehicle, NSEZCO will facilitate the mobilization of additional capital from development finance institutions (DFIs) and private investors.”
He further stated that on February 8, 2019, NSEZCO signed investment agreements with three Development Finance Institutions: Afreximbank, Bank of Industry, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Ministry of Finance Incorporated for their investment in NSEZCO at a ceremony presided over by President Muhammad Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
Further investigation, however, revealed that before the budget presentation, the minister had concluded plans to “divert” N14.5 billion from the N20 billion released for the MINE project implementation.
The sum of N46.17 billion was included in the 2017 budget of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) for upgrading and establishment of new SEZs.
Also, NEPZA’s 2018 budget captured about N40 billion for the same purpose and there was another provision of N42 billion in the 2019 budget of the agency.
It was reliably gathered that the minister wrote his finance counterpart requesting for the transfer of 2017 appropriated funds for MINE Project to NZESCO and in November, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation wrote to NEPZA requesting “disposal instruction” to transfer N14.38 billion to the company as requested by the minister.
A credible source said that the former managing director of NEPZA, Mr. Emmanuel Jime, sought the advice of the attorney-general of the Federation (AGF) and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, on the legality of allowing the minister transfer funds budgeted for NEPZA’s capital projects into a private company’s account.
But to advise NEPZA accordingly, the AGF got an explanation from the trade minister on the issue.
The source quoted the minister as saying that the funds allocated in NEPZA’s budgets were for MINE Project and were only “domiciled” in NEPZA for ease of appropriation and not for NEPZA to implement the project itself.
The minister said that he requested the Budget Office to domicile the funds for the MINE Project in NEPZA’s 2017 and 2018 budgets because then, NSEZCO had not been created.
It was further gathered that the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria wrote a letter to President Buhari on the development.
Senate Threatens To Reallocate Fund
And after unearthing the alleged fraud of N42billion in the budget of the ministry, the committee has threatened to reallocate the disputed fund to other agencies in the ministry.
The committee had on Monday directed the minister to forward a written explanation on how the company got into appropriation list, its management staff, staff strength and statement of account.
Asked yesterday on the committee’s next line of action, Senator Mohammed told LEADERSHIP that: “We are waiting for the report from the ministry today.
“Once we get the report, we will study it and take further action. If we are not satisfied, we will remove that money from the ministry’s budget and use it to fund other agencies. That is the position for now,” he said.
. . . Shifts Budget Passage to April 16
Meanwhile, the Senate has shifted the passage of the 2019 budget bill from yesterday to April 16.
Even though the Senate adjourned plenary till April 9, 2019, following the death of a House of Representatives’ member from Kebbi State, Mohammed Dantani Yawuri, who died last Thursday, the lawmakers mandated every committee to submit its report to the Appropriation Committee by Friday.
The vice chairman of the committee, Senator Sonny Ogbuoji had said that they could not lay the budget on the floor of the Red Chamber because less than 10 committees have submitted their reports.
He said: “Our report is not ready because some committees are yet to submit theirs. For now, we have less than 10 committees that have submitted their reports. We actually requested that they should submit the report by last week but since we don’t have it, we are extending it to Friday this week.
“So, we are asking for two weeks for it to be ready. If they submit on Friday, we should be able to work on it the following week,” Ogbuoji said.
“I want to request that the house empowers the Committee of Appropriations that any committee that doesn’t bring its report by Friday, we will go with the executive position and not wait again,” he added.
The Senate president, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who sought for the senators’ agreement on the issue, announced that the budget would be passed April 16, 219 before the Easter break.
Saraki said: “Let us agree that they submit by Friday, then we suspend plenary for a week till 9th April, latest that week by Thursday we should be able to lay the report and pass this budget by 16th of April because we have the Easter break coming as well. We don’t have that luxury of time.”
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