The management of Calabar Channel Management (CCM) Company has said attempts to link the Imo State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Hope Uzodimma, to the botched dredging of the Calabar Channel are politically motivated and diversionary to the real issues at stake in the project.
Managing Director of the company, Bart Van Eenoo, told newsmen, in Abuja, at the weekend, that Niger-Global Engineering and Technical Services is only a member of the consortium, with equity in CCM.
He said though Uzodimma was its director, he relinquished the position for politics in 2011, and attempts to link him to the dredging were uncalled for.
He said the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) should be held responsible for whatever lapses that occurred in the dredging, as “NPA has 60 percent shares in the CCM consortium, while the rest members have 40 percent.”
Eenoo challenged the NPA to make public the report of the forensic audit carried out on the dredging, since 2017, to know whether any dredging activity was carried out or not, instead of the current blame game and aspersions on Uzodinma.
He said: “Whatever payment to CCM was done in accordance with the terms of the contract and NPA participated in all the works done by our company, as its project resident hydrographic surveyor and technical auditors on the project-CARES Ltd were always on board the dredgers, working on the project and issuing certificates of payments for work done, only after verification that what we presented tallies with the work done and in accordance with the joint venture (JV) agreement. No advance payment is allowed or paid to CCM at any given time.”
He advised the NPA top management and others, out to politicise the project, to consult sincerely with its technical team, which is made up of professionals well trained in the industry, and stop politicising the issue and casting aspersions, as all the equipment and personnel deployed for the project, under the JV agreement, are currently on ground, accruing demurrage. He further said the Nigerian Navy provided security for the expatriates on board the dredging and the equipment used.
He reiterated that, for the records, the entire project for the management of the Calabar Channel followed due process, as the NPA openly advertised for the establishment of a Channel Management Company for the Calabar navigation channel, which Niger-Global Engineering and Technical Company Limited duly bided and won, leading to the establishment of Calabar Channel Management with a JV agreement with the NPA on a 60 percent and 40 percent equity basis.
Eenoo urged NPA and other interested parties to stop playing politics with the project by misinforming the public on the true position of things.
“It is absurd that someone can accuse our company of a bogus scam, when our partners, Boskalis and Westminster Dredging, internationally acclaimed companies, are involved,” he said.