Reps C’ttee Quizzes Minister Over N10bn PPP Healthcare Programme

The House of Representatives Joint Committee on Public Assets and Special Duties, on Tuesday, queried the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, over the N10 billion contribution to Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programmes and concession agreements to improve healthcare in the country.

The Committee, which is investigating the BioVaccines Nigeria Limited, a joint venture between the federal government and May and Baker in 2007 and other partnerships by the Ministry, quizzed the minister at a hearing on Tuesday.

Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Dabo Haruna, directed the minister to submit relevant documents including evidence of advertisement of the PPPs/concession/lease, expression of interest on the arrangements as well as specific achievements recorded by the Ministry in the period under reference.

Also, the Committee’s chairman, Hon. Ademorin Kuye, who later joined the investigative hearing, insisted that the Minister should provide the documents supporting the Ministry’s N10bn equity contribution.

Kuye said, “I also want to bring to your notice that in the document, part of the documents submitted, the equity contribution of the federal government is N10 billion.

“We take it as part of the information and documents that will be submitted alongside with the pending documents. We want to know where that money is, the utilisation of the funds, when the money is being released, where the money has been domiciled.

“Also part of the agreement, government gave out a landed property in Lagos. We want to have comprehensive documents of the agreement and document of the property, the landed property, to be submitted to this Honourable Committee as well.

“Finally, we want you to clarify to us in your next appearance, the share capital of federal government and that of the partners, we want documents showing in detail how the shares have been domiciled, what is for the federal government and what is the percentage

that belongs to the federal government and that of the partners.”

The minister, who asked for more time to provide the relevant documents, said his ministry had taken due steps to collect the documents that were available, but there were still important gaps.

“I would like to plead with the committee in order to be very thorough in terms of completeness of what you have requested that we be given more time to be able to come back to the committee with a fuller response that is vetted.

“I would like to personally vet all the documents before they are submitted to you and where they are not in existence, to be able to come back to you. As you can understand, many of these were entered into years before we came into office and we’re dealing with the residue of some of those agreements which I believe have been shared with you but admittedly the information is incomplete.

“So Mr Chairman, I will not want to share information with you that is incomplete. And we are working very hard to ensure that we collect all the information that is required and come back to you with indication of what we have and the gaps that exist in what we have inherited.

“I know that you’ve been patient with us but it’s quite challenging to gather all the documents that go years in the making and we were not here but we are responsible for ensuring that you get all the information that you need to conduct your due diligence.

“So in the context of this process, I plead with the committee to give us a bit more time and I will personally ensure that we compile them and with a tabulation of when the agreements were made,” the minister stated.