House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation has explained why it gave a clean bill of health to Intels to go ahead and implement its agreement with the Federal government after the conclusion of its visit to Lagos , Port Harcourt and Warri port facilities.

Vice Chairman of the Committee, Abass Braimah in a chat with Daily Sun explained that the visit to the ports gave the committee opportunity to appraise the situation at the ports and the need to allow the firm continue implementing agreements reached with government.

He said that the answers provided by officials of the company during the visit of the committee to the port this month was convincing enough not to tamper with the operations of the ports.
Following series of petitions received on the conduct of Ports concession exercise by the Bureau of Public Entreprises (BPE) with respect to Calabar, Onne and Warri Ports, the committee decided to visit the affected ports.

‘One of the major reasons we decided to go on the trip was to find an amicable way of resolving the grievances against the company by other competitors. This was also based on the fact that, for instance in 1982, the foreign companies building the Onne Ports Complex abandoned the construction for non payment of fees by the Federal Government.

“The NPA then invited the private sector to operate the federal lighter terminal which was the partially completed section of the port complex development available then. Of the eight companies that took up the opportunity, within two years, only two Brawal and Nicotes that later changed its name to Integrated Logistics Services (Intels) were still operating,” he said.

Hon Buraimoh added that the committee also discovered that Intels had after a detailed analysis of the logistics needs of the oil and gas industry accepted to the challenge of developing an integrated supply base within the boundaries of the government owned port complexes in liaison with the NPA which awarded the company a five year lease of NPA facilities at Onne Calabar and Warri ports.

On seeing the lucrative nature of the business, the company in 1992 applied for a 21 year extension of its leases which the Federal Government after review chose three companies Nicotes, Brawal and Marine oil services.

Both Brawal and Nicotes now Intels were given allocations of developing large areas of undeveloped lands and Onne but only Intels has developed its portion and is still doing more jobs.

So far, the committee was told that eight thousand direct jobs and 20 indirect jobs thousand have been created by the company, by bringing under one roof logistics and cost of services of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

On the commitment of the company for the concession to BPE/NPA, the Committee confirmed that Intels so far has made a payment of $724,651,719 million for commencement fee, leases, and Throughput and land Industrial area fees.