$418m Paris Club Refund: NGF Got $100m For Ekiti, Bauchi, Ondo Polls – Consultants
BY EDMOND ODOK – Controversies surrounding the contentious Paris Club Refund have taken another twist with the Lead Consultant of Linas International Limited, the consultants for the recovery of deductions from Paris and London clubs debt buyback funds, Prince Ned Nwoko, alleging that the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) demanded and received the sum of $100 million to prosecute elections in some states.
Nwoko’s reaction is coming amid the flurry of allegations and claims trailing his personal and company’s demands for the payment of services fees from the state governments and local government councils in the country.
He told newsmen in Abuja on Saturday that recent NGF’s outburst on the matter is just mere ‘noise-making’, adding that a former chairman of the Forum had informed him that the money was needed to prosecute elections in Bauchi, Ekiti, and Ondo states.
The Lead Consultant also alleged that when he submitted a bill of $350 million as the consultancy fee, the State governors demanded to be paid 50 percent of it before it could be honored.
He said it was the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Justice that saw the governors eventually receiving the sum of $100 million, further hinting that the money owed to the consultants was $68 million and not $418 million as being peddled in the public space.
According to him, the consultants have nothing to do with $418 million, which must be a miscalculation, even as he absolved the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami of any wrongdoings.
Nwoko said the Justice Minister was only trying to ensure the law was obeyed, submitting that the agreements and judgment being executed were reached before the advent of the present administration.
More to come…
