$23m MANITOBA Contract: How Canadian Govt Forced Jonathan To Make U-turn

Pressure from the international community, especially the Canadian government, as well as from preferred bidders for the electricity generation companies forced the presidency to reverse itself on the cancellation of the $23 million transmission management contract awarded to Canadian firm Manitoba Hydro International, LEADERSHIP findings have revealed.

It was learnt that the Canadian ambassador to Nigeria had discussions with the minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Vice President Namadi Sambo as well as President Goodluck Jonathan at separate meetings where he was said to have expressed his country’s displeasure over the development.

Although details of the meetings could not be obtained, sources within the presidency told LEADERSHIP that the Canadian ambassador told President Jonathan that the Canadian government was unhappy with the issue and may be reluctant in supporting Nigeria in other sectors due to the way Manitoba has been treated.

It was also gathered that Atedo Peterside, who is the chairman, Technical Committee on Privatisation, and member of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), similarly advised the president against the decision.

According to the source, Peterside expressed concern that if Manitoba’s contract was cancelled, it meant all efforts that had so far been put into the privatisation process would have been in vain.

It was further learnt that the preferred bidders for the generation companies who didn’t want the privatisation process to be jeopardised also worked from the background to mount pressure on the presidency.

‘’Winners of the distribution companies would be kept on tarry-a-while if we allowed them to cancel Manitoba’s contract. Because when will they do another procurement for transmission management? People will advise you not to even put your money down because you do not know who will manage the transmission,’’ a source told LEADERSHIP. ‘’We told them that we will not go ahead with making bid payments if they cancel Manitoba’s contract because we do not know who will transmit the power we will generate. “

Lamenting the whole drama over Manitoba’s contract cancellation and reinstatement, the presidential source who did not want to be named because of the nature of the matter alleged that the presidency acted based on hearsay.

He explained that Manitoba was shortlisted in 2007 and given the contract in 2012 but people are now saying the process was manoeuvred just to run down the director-general, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Bola Onagoruwa, thinking she was the one who arranged for Manitoba to emerge winner, whereas she inherited the process.

‘’When in 2006 the contract management of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) was advertised, nobody took it seriously. Nigerians were mocking us, saying the privatisation would not work.

The source told LEADERSHIP that some powerful Nigerians are behind the Power-grid Corporation of India and are trying to frustrate the whole process. ‘’They are the ones behind the whole conspiracy,’’ he said.

Source: Leadership