… demands N50M as damages
Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has been dragged before an Abuja High Court for awarding a multi-million dollar contract without the Federal Executive Council’s approval.
An American company with a branch in Nigeria has sued the Minister and two others – Nigeria immigration Service and the Minister of Justice, for breach in contractual agreement.
The company, DCA Global LLC and its affiliate in Nigeria, DCA United Services Limited, through it’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, SAN, is claiming that it applied for the establishment of Passport Application Support Centres in 12 countries around the world for the renewal of Nigerian passports.
“In 2016, we conceived, developed and sold to the Federal Government through the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Immigration Service the idea of establishing International Passport Enrollment or Renewal Centres in 12 countries under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative of the Federal Government.”
In the originating summons, the American company is also claiming that the project is projected to be generating revenue of over $700million to the coffers of the Federal Government.
It said the number of countries to be covered by the planned exercise were increased from 12 to 25 before the change of government on May 29th last year.
With the increase in the number of countries to be involved, the expected revenue was also increased from $700 million to over $3billion annually.
The American company said it conceived and developed the said idea, which went through Nigeria Immigration Service, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission and the Federal Ministry of Finance for their approval, which was granted.
“After the production of the outline business case, the Immigration Service forwarded same to the Federal ministries of Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission for certification and project acceptance.”
The company said after these processes “approval certificates were issued to the immigration by them as project acceptability, viability and indicating a 70-30% revenue sharing to Nigerian government and the American company.
It said after the approval/certification, advertisement were placed in some newspapers and request for qualification by immigration stating the project will be procured under a Swiss Challenge Procurement Methodology which requires that if the private (original) project proponent is not the most responsive bidder, it will be given the first Right of Refusal to match the most responsive bid to win the contract.
According to the claimant, Ministry of Finance instructed the Immigration to proceed to negotiate the terms of the contract with the prospective private investor prior to its presentation to the Federal Executive Council for necessary approval.
“The only outstanding thing left is for the Full Business Case to be prepared in the name of the claimant and forwarded to ICRC and FEC for consideration and approval.”
It said only for the Minister of Interior to bypass all these and announce the commencement of the project to another company without recourse to the claimant.
It is, therefore, asking the court to restrain the defendants from acting on or taking any further action on their decision to deny or deprive the claimant of the right of first refusal.
It is also asking the court to restrain the defendants from inviting, considering or further considering any bids for establishment of passport application support centres in these countries.
It is also asking for N50million, being cost of damages.