Airport concession: Proserve won transparent bid, company says
Proserve Energy Services Limited yesterday dismissed a story in an online medium that said it was improperly selected as transaction adviser in the concessioning of four national airports, saying it emerged as the preferred bidder “after a very competitive, rigorous and transparent bid process.”
The online medium had said in a story last Tuesday that Proserve is an oil and gas company that should not have been chosen as the transaction adviser.
In a statement it issued yesterday, Proserve’s management described the story as “not only false but contains wild and reckless allegations on matters of public procurement which could have easily been verified from the relevant agencies of Government.” The immediate Legal Adviser, national caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barrister Mohammed Kabir Usman, has said the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not fulfill its pledges to since it was elected in 2015.
He said from education, healthcare, infrastructure to economic diversification, human capacity development and values and ethics, the government has scored low.
In a statement in Abuja yesterday, Usman also said financial probity, anti-corruption war, unemployment, security have not be properly addressed.
According to him, “…the official creed of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government of
It said “contrary to the false representations in the publication, Proserve in conjunction with a consortium of reputable international consultants emerged as preferred bidders and accordingly engaged as Transaction Advisers by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Transportation for the concession of some airports in Nigeria after a rigorous procurement process.”
It said “the Consortium consists of a team of highly experienced international consultants cutting across the sphere of Public-Private Partnership (financial, technical and legal aspects), business planning and demand forecasting; environmental and social impact assessment, infrastructure concessioning and financial modeling amongst others. The Consortium consists of some of the most the All Progressives Congress is propaganda first, every other thing much later.”
Usman explained that President Buhari-led government started on a very poor footing which could have been ignored because they arrived unprepared for the business of leading a nation.
He noted that Nigeria, though Nigeria with plenty strength in diversity, recent happenings strongly suggests that beyond their unpreparedness lies a deep desire to keep people permanently bonded to extreme poverty and disunity.
The former legal adviser noted that it remained to be explained why under the APC, unemployment has risen to nearly 15 per cent with the finance and telecommunications sectors leading with massive job cuts. renowned names in global aviation industry in their respective areas of specialization.”
According to Proserve, “before the award of the contract to the consortium as Transaction Advisers, there was an advertisement in the Daily Trust Newspaper of Monday, June 13, 2016 and another publication by the Federal Ministry of Transport calling for Expression of Interest (EOI).
“The Consortium submitted its EOI to the Ministry of Transport in 2016 in accordance with the advertisement. Thereafter, the Consortium was shortlisted and invited to submit a proposal. It is surprising that despite the fact that the procurement process was advertised in the Newspapers for the attention of the general members of the public, the process was said to be shrouded in ‘secrecy’,” the statement said.