Firm denies involvement in N27bn PHCN scam

The Kakatar Construction and Engineering Ltd and its Managing Director Azibaola Robert are not part of any scam involving alleged diversion of monies allegedly meant to settle insurance premium of the sacked defunct PHCN workers, the company’s spokesman Mr. Austin Ekheinde has said.

Ekheinde told reporters yesterday in Abuja that the clarification became necessary against allegations that Kakatar Ltd. was part of an alleged diversion of insurance premium payments of the PHCN workers.

“An affidavit deposed to by an officer of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a forfeiture order clearly misrepresented the facts. The truth is that Kakatar CE took an N2.5bn facility from Bestworth Insurance Brokers Limited to fund a federal government contract we won to provide infrastructure for Kyami District, Abuja.

“On 12 December, 2014, Kakatar CE got an award letter for a contract to provide engineering infrastructure for Kyami District which we were required to move to site to commence work immediately. As we were unable to secure a favourable credit facility from any commercial bank, Bestworth Insurance offered to provide us a project execution facility with mutually agreed terms upon which we moved to site immediately.

“Unfortunately, the federal government has been unable to pay its statutory mobilization sum of over N7.5bn due to Kakatar CE. However, sometime last year, EFCC invited us that they were investigating Bestworth for alleged diversion of insurance premiums of PHCN workers. That was how our N2.5 billion facility became an issue. There is no law which says a corporate organisation cannot take a facility from another corporate organization,” Ekheinde said.