On Bode George, others court ruling It is quite surprising, the judgement by the High Court Judge of Lagos, to convict Chief Olabode George the erstwhile Chairman of the Board, and Arch. Aminu Dabo, the former Managing Director of the premier Nigeria Port Authority with four others on charges referred to as “Disobeying a lawful Order” and “Contract Splitting”, Being a stakeholder and a retiree of the Ministry for Transport, I felt I owe it a duty to come out with some revealing facts and figures which will save the public from being distracted on understanding actual truth of the matter. NPA was created by an Act which is guided by International and Local Laws, due to its commercially operational nature. In fact, this was done to facilitate and protect its economic activities, away from bureaucratic bottlenecks, just as the EFCC’s activities were carved out from the Police functions to save it from the same bottlenecks and be more effective. This special protection for special agencies made NPA unique in so many aspects. It is the only agency allowed to retain, entirely its total revenue. This makes it to have independent salary structure, housing scheme, pension scheme etc. It also received directly, 7 percent of the revenue, generated by the Nigerian Custom Service, for servicing its Heavy Duty infrastructure, because their collection as the nation’s second largest revenue source depends entirely on the operations of the NPA. To make it clearer, NPA has eight different levels of approval, as par its large structure and strategic function. These include the Federal Executive Council, the Transport Ministry, the Board of Directors, the Executives Management, the Managing Director, the Executive Directors, the General Manager and the Port Managers. One may therefore wonder, why only one, out of eight levels was charged with disobeying the lawful order in awarding the said contracts. This controversy emanated from a purported circular of Federal Ministry of Finance, (No. F.15775 dated 27th June, 2001) on policy guidelines, which reviewed the approval limits of Federal Ministries and Parastatals, which was sent to the then Board, but “chose by their own volition to disregard the order” in the words of the judge. It will be good enough here to clarify that, that circular, even if exists, does not have any statutory binding on NPA, because of the prerogative it has and position by law. In fact, that was what make that circular not only illegal, but unlawful, and not meant for large organisations like NPA, but may be lawful to other small scale organisations like Agency for Mass Education or National Nomadic Education Agency. This can be justified by looking at the previous approval limits, as it was N20 million for Board, N5 million for the MD, while N350,000 for the Port Managers, in the year 1993. It was also reviewed upward, due to an increase in operational costs and subsequent devaluation of Naira in the year 1999, when N30 million was approved for the Board, N10 million for the MD and N700,000 for the Port Managers, a 100 percent increase. It will therefore be very funny, unrealistic, and be described as an act of sabotage, to wake up in the year 2001 and tell Nigerians that, that same approval limit be reviewed downward to N10 million for the board and N700,000 for the MD, certainly this is unworkable and unlawful. With the MD having that chunk as approval limit, then a Port Manager will not have more than N50,000 as approval limit, which is unbelievable, to run ports like Onne, Tincan or Roro for example, with that amount. The Board therefore, having the statutory right and function to protect and safeguard the interest of the NPA, should certainly resist and fight the unlawful instructions sent to the organisation. This further indicates that the judge is ignorant of the functions and structure of the NPA. Furthermore, NPA is divided into 3 different operational categories. The lower level that is the user department, which is saddled with the statutory function of making market survey, appraising, bidding and pricing, and then forwarding to second level its requests. Then the second level that is purely professional level which is saddled with statutory function of sorting, estimating, checking, verifying, standardising and scrutinising the submission made by the lower level, who then forwards their recommendations for approval to the third level, which consist of the MD, Board and FEC who also are saddled with that statutory function. It will therefore be surprising to expect the Board to do the work of the lower categories, for instance going to as down as making market survey or verifying prices. The board was purely administrative policy body, which in many cases, know less or nothing about the technicality of some equipment. Being political appointees, they, in most cases, act upon the professionals’ advice. It will also be surprising to expect what the board discussed in an official meeting called, with resolutions passed, will constitute an offence of conspiracy. As for the issue of the “Contract Splitting”, the judgment clarify the innocence of the accused persons, because everybody was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that there was no any contract split at the Board level. This is because, during the trial which lasted for 15 months, one of the major prosecution witnesses, Engr. Mustapha Bukar, a Director in the Federal Ministry of Transportation, who chaired the 7-man administrative panel instituted by the Federal Government to probe the activities of the NPA, admitted under cross-examination by counsel to the defendants that, there was no evidence indicating that the contracts awarded were splited at the Board level. Another area in which the judge erred is by merely importing a law called “responsible corporate offence doctrine” where he wanted to convince the public that an offence committed by the lower level is also binding to the higher level members of an organisation. Looking at the ruling by the Supreme Court, in one of Andy Uba’s case, it is therefore an “alien to our constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, meaning not appropriate in the laws of our land, and adopting such laws in our courts at the same time will set a dangerous precedence in the judicial services of the country, and could therefore be difficult for important personalities to easily accept appointments as board members, thereby missing entirely, their highly needed contributions. As published in Daily Trust of Sunday 6th December, 2009 by: Sylvester P. Ogbunna, wrote this piece from No. 21 Aba Road, Enugu. ( Ogbunna_ogbunna@yahoo
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 06:55:51 +0000