Tony Ailemen, Abuja
The Federal Government has substituted Lufthansa Airline as a member of the consortium engaged to provide transaction advisory services for the establishment of a National Aviation Services Carrier for Nigeria.
Minister of State, Aviation, Hadi Serika disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to Serika, Council considered and approved that substitution with another company called AMG (Airline Management Group) with Avia Solutions GE to join the other members of the consortium to continue, providing that it would be at the same cost of N341,200 million.
On why Lufthansa was dropped, the Minister said the Federal government observed that “particular member of the consortium, Lufthansa Consulting, is an appendage of the airline group and that might bring conflict of interests because Lufthansa themselves may want to join, partner or help in the process during the procurement phase of this transaction.
He declared that they are members of Star Alliance, members of One World and members of Sky team, even as government fears that others may feel shortchanged that the ” person advising us set up that this airline which is going to be private sector driven, is a member of an alliance which they are not part of.”
According to him, “since we appointed the transactions advisers in various aviation projects in May 2017, about six of them. Five of them have gone ahead, the one for construction of airport, the one for aerotropolis and the one for MRO and so on and so forth.
“Most of them have produced the outline business cases and we are on our way to doing the full business case.
“However, Lufthansa Consulting, did not accept the offer, neither have they signed any contract. They countered the offer instead.”
He said Lufthansa also gave conditions which the government could not meet.
He added: “One of the conditions is that we should pay them 75 percent of the total cost, which is against our procurement law. They also wanted us to change the contract from naira to Euro. They also wanted us to open an Escrow account in an internationally recognised bank outside the country where the money will be domiciles etc.
“So, we found that that was against our procurement law and we have been going back and forth for seven months to see whether they can accept the terms and conditions and even if they had done at that time and they didn’t up till today.
“We couldn’t continue with them because it will compromise the system which we thought should be transparent.
“So, that is why we sought the approval of council to substitute them why a neutral person and someone who will accept the terms and conditions given, to accept payment in naira, to accept 15 percent payment of the entire cost as against 75 percent etc.”
Also briefing, the Minister of Interior, Abdurahman Danbazzau, announced the procurement of vehicles for the Immigration Service totaling N483.210 million.
The vehicles, 39 in all, include border patrol vehicles for both the Comptroller General of Immigrations and the Deputy Comptroller General.
A break down of the vehicles shows that while 14 of them cost N14.490m each, 25 were procured at the cost of N8.347,500 each.
According to the Minister: “For the first category of procurement including five percent VAT, it is N14.490 million and second category which is 25 of them it is N8.347,500
The total, including painting in immigration colours N4.095 million, totaling N483.210 million.”
