MDGs Boss, Sister Petitioned over N58m Debt
Yemi Akinsuyi
A solar company, Zimmerman Brothers Nigeria Limited, has petitioned the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mrs. Precious Gbeneol, over N58 million debt in connection with a contract of installation of solar powers in some South-eastern states.
According to the petition signed by the Chief Executive Officer of Zimmerman Brothers Nigeria Limited, David Umezurike, despite the fact that the contract was executed at the stipulated time and also that the said money was paid into the account of the company, D’Jes Enterprises Limited, purportedly owned by the sister to Mrs. Gbeneol, Mrs. Tamuno Jamagbo, the money had not been remitted into Zimmerman’s account.
Umezurike, in the petition said: “Zimmerman Brothers Limited was contracted by D’Jes Enterprises Limited, represented by Mr. Simon J. Aboki, who was acting on behalf of Mrs. Gbeneol and Mrs. Tamuno Jamagbo to install 906 solar street light distributed across five states; Rivers, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Edo on July, 2013. The total contract sum was agreed to be N200,000 per pole with the grand total of N181,200,000. Of this quantity, 300 poles belonged to Spirent Nigeria Limited.
“In the course of executing the project, we were unable to get sites for the remaining 300 poles which were located in five communities in Enugu and Anambra States. At this point, Dr. (Mrs) Jamagbo’s representative, Nelson, handed the site takeover certificate and copy of award letter for Spirent Nigeria Limited to me, David Umezurike to enable us locate the sites.
“The job was completed in November 2013 after installation of all the components on the poles and the lights are still functional up to date. The sites were inspected by MDG state consultants and valuation certificate issued. Upon investigation, we realized that Spirent Nigeria Limited, the company with the last 300 poles, was paid since August 2013, a revelation that you earlier confirmed in our meeting with you in November 2014.”
Umezurike said after one year of the completion of the project a total sum of N125 million was paid into his company’s account, leaving out N56.2 million.
He said in October 2014, a request was made to Mrs. Jamagbo on the need to pay the money but it did not yield positive result as he said the woman, who had earlier collected the full payment for the job on behalf of her company, refused to pay them.