Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance have frowned at the retention of a retired director, Peter Ogborbina by the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) as its Head of Legal.
Daily Trust gathered that Ogborbina, who was seconded to the NBET legal department from the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), had attained retirement status and retired from the services of NEITI but still retains his position at NBET as General Counsel.
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The committee raised the issue during investigative hearing on a $33 million power contract with Azura Power Plant and others under the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) supervised by NBET.
Chairman of the committee, James Faleke (APC, Lagos), demanded that the NBET Managing Director, Nnaemeka Ewelukwa, should produce the record of the director’s engagement as a contract staff.
The NBET MD in his response said that the agency has contract staff in addition to normal nominal roll but Faleke directed him to provide evident records, especially on the retired director who is the head of legal, a management position.
Faleke said: “There are Nigerians in your agency that are not happy with what is happening. They are also not happy. They are feeling that you are narrowing them, you did not allow them to grow. And so, they took your file and copies of everything and gave it to us.
“You employed somebody on secondment from NEITI. He retired. You brought him, no contract and you are telling me that, there is a contract. No problem, but I don’t know him, I have nothing against him. But, do the right thing.
“Please, let’s do the right thing. Your head of legal, I heard that he has gone to ease himself and has disappeared. Let him go. But, let me tell you, the documents in your file, I have everything”.
Daily Trust contacted the communications team of NBET for a response and also sent messages to Mr Ewelukwa, but NBET was yet to respond to the paper’s enquiry. Spokesperson for the agency, Henrietta Ighomrore, promised to revert but did not do so as of press time.
By Balarabe Alkassim & Simon Echewofun Sunday
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