NLNG Offers N60bn to FG for Bodo-Bonny Road Project
Chineme Okafor
If accepted by the federal government, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited has said that it will part-finance the Bonny-Bodo road, a long-standing road infrastructure project of the government to the tune of N60 billion.
According to the Managing Director of NLNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, the company’s N60 billion offer represents 50 per cent of the total project cost for the road. He said the project would help improve the infrastructure in the Niger Delta when completed.
Omotowa told the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs at a hearing in Abuja that NLNG’s offer to provide 50 per cent of the funding for the road would be activated provided that the partnership is accepted and matched by the federal government.
The road, he added, cuts through Ogoni, Okrika, Eleme and Andoni into Bonny. He explained that the lives of thousands of Nigerians living in these communities would be improved when the road is completed.
He then called on the government and relevant agencies, including the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) which is in disagreement with it over the legality of a three per cent development levy, to partner with it in the road project.
The senate committee had invited the NLNG to clarify its reported refusal to remit to the NDDC, a three per cent development levy as contained in the NDDC Act, but Omotowa explained that the company’s position on its exemption from payment of the levy was based on an existing law- the NLNG Act of 2004, which granted such exemption to it.
He noted that the matter under reference was also the subject of a legal action filed against NLNG by the NDDC in 2005 in which the High Court, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court had all ruled in favour of NLNG.
“We are working to build a road from Bodo to Bonny, which we offered to contribute 50 per cent to the federal government and that will traverse Ogoni, Eleme and Andoni, and so you can see from all of these that we are already contributing to the Niger Delta much more than the three per cent.
“We have offered to the government that the road between Bodo to Bonny which has beem outstanding since the 1970s, that we are willing to offer 50 per cent of the cost of the project to the government and that contribution is N60 billion and we think that these are the kind of projects that the NDDC can work with us,” Omotowa said.
He said while making further clarifications on the company’s position on the levy that: “When the NLNG was set up we were granted an Act called the NLNG Act which grants some incentives to make NLNG to operate and grow.
“Those incentives were what made us to become a six-train plant today but subsequently, there were other laws that were passed in the country including the NDDC Act which provides for a levy and when that was passed, NDDC was asked to collect a three per cent levy but we were able to show them that the NLNG Act exempted us from the levy.
“They were not satisfied and went to court for interpretation. This went to the High Court, the Appeal Court and those two courts were very clear in their judgments that NLNG was exempted from paying the three per cent levy and so legally, we have that clarification from the courts that NLNG is exempted from the payment of the levy.”