The House of Representatives Committee on Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring on Tuesday met with the management of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Brentex/CPP Consortium and Bablink Resources Ltd over alleged breach of the Local Content Act.
The trio were invited following a petition by the ‘Local Content Advocacy & Monitoring Group in a February 2, 2021 letter addressed to the Speaker, House of Representatives.
The letter alleged that there was a breach of local content in the award/execution of the Kaduna-Kano section of the Ajaokuta to Kaduna gas pipeline project.
The about $2.6 billion contract was awarded to Brentex/CPP Consortium.
The letter reads in parts “Mr speaker, we wish to draw your very esteemed attention to the implicit violation of the Nigeria Local Content Act in the ongoing execution of the 40” ×318.6 Km (BVS12-Kaduna-Kano Section) of the Ajaokuta to Kaduna to Kano Gas Pipeline Project (AKKP) Segment 2 being a contract awarded by the NNPC on behalf of the Nigerian government in 2015 to Brentex CPP”.
NNPC Chief Operating Officer (COO), Gas and Power, Yusuf Usman said, the contract was awarded to the Brentex/CPP consortium which brought in Bablink Resource Ltd.
Usman, who represented the Group Managing Director (GMD), Mele Kyari, said all the terms of the contract complied with the Local Content Act as required.
Brentex Nigeria Ltd’s Executive Vice Chairman, Sani Abubakar, said the firm is 100 per cent Nigerian, adding that it had not exceeded its expatriate workforce quota.
The project, he stated, engages 10,000 skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers with a 40 per cent Chinese content as agreed.
He said there were only five Chinese engineers, with a plan to bring the number to 50, but that they would work in a team headed by a Nigerian.
But Bablinks Resources Nigeria Ltd Managing Director (MD), Bolaji Isiaka, accused Brentex of short-changing his firm and breaching the initial contract agreement.
He said his firm invited other Nigerian firms in the oil and gas services sector to form a consortium whose expertise and records helped Brentex to secure the contract.
He alleged that after providing its services and preparing the grounds for Brentex, they were shut out and a Chinese company with no record of competence was brought in by Brentex,
“We wrote to them, they said we don’t have a stake. We wrote to them again, they said we should go to court,” Isiaka added.
After the hearing, the solicitor to Local Content Advocacy and Monitoring Group, John Lebor stated his version of the situation.
Lebor said: “That project is about $2.6 billion. At the award of that project, NNPC, BPP insisted that there must be a local content company with the capacity and Bablinks Nigeria Ltd is the company that has that local content capacity in the sense that they have done a lot of pipeline projects in Warri with Shell and they are one of the best in the country.“
