Malami says Justice Ministry will vet contracts before FG signs

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has said that the Ministry of Justice will henceforth examine certain categories of contracts before any Federal Government agencies sign them, Punch reports.

Malami while speaking in Abuja on Thursday, August 22, 2019, when he resumed work said the decision was made to curb corruption in public service and at the same time rid Nigeria of financial institutions that aid and abet unethical financial practices.

According to Punch, the minister also expressed concerns about the recent United Kingdom’s judgment which awarded $9.9bn against Nigeria in the Nigeria V Process & Industrial Developments Ltd. case.

Malami maintained that those who led the country into the contract would be prosecuted.

Recall that on Friday, August 16, 2019, a British court ruled that an engineering and project management company, Process and Industrial Developments Ltd. had the right to seize more than $9 billion in assets from the Nigerian government over a failed natural gas deal.

The amount represents one-fifth of the foreign reserves held by Africa’s largest economy.

The Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID;) company — widely reported to be registered in the British Virgin Islands — was founded by two Irish business partners for the purpose of executing the 2010 deal with the Lagos government.

The 20-year agreement would see P&ID; “build a state-of-the-art gas processing plant to refine natural gas… (which) Nigeria would receive free of charge to power its national electric grid,” according to the P&ID; website.