As I promised last week, I will conclude on the allegations raised by
the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee Report on NAHCON’s activities.
E.
The committee alleged that NAHCON breached several provisions of the
Public Procurement Act PPA in its yearly advertisements on the airlift
of Hajj pilgrims and cargo airfreight in the following areas:
a.
The charging of a non-refundable fee of N1,000,000 for airlines bidding
for the airlift of pilgrims and half of that for those bidding for
cargoÑairfreight. The PPA empowers procuring entities to charge for only
the cost of printing and the cost of provision of the bidding documents
to suppliers or contractors and consultants.
b. The submission deadline for the bids is one week short of the six weeks required by the PPA
c. The advertisement NAHCON makes required the bidders to obtain an application form instead of bidding documents.
F. The report alleges that the 2017 Hajj airfares of $1,650 for the
North and $1,700 for the South of the country “were grossly exorbitant”.
The Committee then mentioned the airfares for scheduled flights for
other countries to the same destination - Saudi Arabia - for comparison
with the figures lower than what NAHCON-approved airlines were charging.
This alone tells you that the committee did a really shoddy job and did
not know the vast difference between a chartered flight and a scheduled
flight. To further betray their ignorance, they went on to compare the
price of scheduled flights by Max Air to Saudia during the Umrah season
with chartered flights during Hajj season. Subhaanallah! I will come
back to this later, inshaa Allah.
G. The committee alleged in the
report that the Fly Nas, a Saudi airline, which airlifted 50% of
Nigerian pilgrims in 2017, was emboldened by the high charges. They also
mentioned that another Saudi Airline, Al Wafeer Air, a scheduled flight
operator, would have charged just $1,300 for the same trip. Again, the
ignorance of the authors of the report is outstanding. They alleged in
the report, also, that the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) with
Saudi Arabia, which allowed a Saudi Carrier of the country’s choice
(read Fly Nas) to airlift 50% of Nigerian pilgrims is unfair and that
other countries have pulled out of the arrangement. They also claimed
that Nigeria was targeted for the BASA because our airfares were the
highest.
H. Another claim in the report was that NAHCON was not
using the ₦5,000 development levy it charged each pilgrim annually
judiciously. The report further stated that the charges were unjustified
as they fell under the social responsibility of the government.
I. The report alleges that the company it has been accusing NAHCON of
giving an undue advantage, Shuraka Al Khair, was contracted to screen
the luggage of pilgrims when NAHCON had already constituted a committee
on screening staffed completely by its own employees. The same company
was contracted to move the main luggage of the pilgrims from their
accommodation in Makkah to the airport in Jeddah.
J. The report
also alleges that NAHCON secures, negotiates and pays for accommodation
for all pilgrims and fixed a benchmark price for the accommodation
prices. It equally alleged that NAHCON chooses the accommodation and
service providers which the State Pilgrims Welfare Boards (SPWBs) were
constrained to patronise. The allegations also include the fact that
NAHCON reviewed the prices of accommodation in Madeenah downwards but
that of Makkah continued to vary each year.
K. The report
alleges that NAHCON paid for 75 days’ accommodation in Madeenah although
the Hajj season lasts only 30 days. It alleges that the excess 45 days
was to allow NAHCON rent out the buildings to other nationals and make
money illegally. It even went as far as alleging that the revenue
collector’s receipt used for issuing the receipts for renting out the
excess bed spaces for the excess period of 45 days was ‘fraudulently
sourced’.
L. The committee alleges that Saudi-based
Nigerian-owned companies (not to be confused with Nigerien-owned) were
sidelined in the provision of services and accommodation to Nigerian
pilgrims by NAHCON sign deliberately stringent conditions it knows the
companies cannot meet. It also alleges that NAHCON eliminated
competition in the process of selecting accommodation providers in
Makkah and that this has resulted in the escalation of prices of bed
spaces. They stated that NAHCON gave 65% of all contracts in Saudia to
Shuraka Al Khair Group Ltd, which is not owned by a Nigerian. Another
issue their report raised was that NAHCON rented apartments that were up
to 10 kilometres away from the Haram for the pilgrims. It mentioned the
issue of ‘unilateral levies’ imposed on the Saudi based service
providers by NAHCON since 2015 when the current chairman was appointed.
M.The senate ad-hoc committee alleges that NAHCON issued dud cheques to
a service provider. This is a very serious allegation but as you shall
see, it is based on fiction and not fact.
N. Another strange
aspect of the report was that NAHCON simply succumbed to the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia without a fight to include feeding into what Saudi-based
service providers would give the pilgrims. The committee insisted that
other countries opted out of the arrangement and fed their own pilgrims
with their local dishes. They allege that Messrs Shuraka Al Khair Group
was given special preference by NAHCON to provide the catering services
for 23 different states’ pilgrims.
O. The drama did not end as
the report alleges that NAHCON doubled the cost of transportation in
Saudia without commensurate improvement. The committee also believes
that the introduction of a reputable bank, Jaiz Bank, for collecting and
remitting the hady fees per pilgrim instead of the pilgrims paying a
higher price individually was a bad idea.
P. The committee also
alleges that NAHCON sponsors an outrageous number of officials to Saudia
during the Hajj season and that many of these are merely cronies and
family members of the officials in the Commission. It also alleges that
NAHCON does not pursue the interest of the pilgrims.
Let us look
at these allegations briefly, starting from the ones I mentioned last
week. The next piece will centre around their recommendations, insha
Allah.
1) Allegation A: I am aware that there is a resident
procurement officer deployed by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP)
to the Commission that heads the Commission’s procurement department.
When the Senate Ad Hoc Committee alleged otherwise, it was clear no one
tried to confirm this. Contrary to the claim of the report that the
Commission has no procurement committee, its Procurement Planning
Committee is headed by the Commissioner in Charge of Policy, Personnel,
Management and Finance. Before him, it was the Commissioner for Planning
and before that, it was the Commissioner for Operations. Where the
Senate Committee got its information is only imaginable.
For
matters relating to Hajj, every country with a sizeable Muslim
population designates a body equivalent to our Hajj Commission to
represent it. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs once supervised Hajj and
the bureaucratic bottlenecks that occasioned led to the management being
removed from the Ministry. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan and
Malaysia, to mention countries with a high number of pilgrims, have
autonomous bodies for Hajj affairs and in the case of Saudi Arabia, a
full-fledged Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. The committee wishes to take us
back to the days of chaos because they have not studied the history of
Hajj management in Nigeria and the events that led to the current
structure.
2) Allegation B: Last week, I already dismissed the
second claim because it was based on pure ignorance. Statutory charges
were made to look like NAHCON imposed charges.
3)
Allegations C, D and E were also based on lack of due diligence on the
part of the Committee. The BPP and NAHCON have had a running argument
over the difference between its procurement processes and its licensing
role. The Commission requested the BPP to seek clarification with the
Attorney-General of the Federation over the two roles because as far as
the Commission understood, both are not guided by the same Public
Procurement Act. The licensing fees NAHCON charges were deliberately
represented as charges that were unknown to a non-existent procurement
process of Commission. All procurement processes are governed by the PPA
whereas the same cannot be said for licensing. Besides, the licensing
fees and all the charges collected by NAHCON are captured in their
yearly budgets, which the Presidency submits to the Senate for scrutiny.
All these years, no one has raised an eyebrow until this Committee came
up with this concoction of a report.
4) Allegation F and G:
This is a recurring display of ignorance by different Committees of both
legislative chambers. Alhaji Muniru Bankole of Med-View Airlines aptly
explained this to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing to
which I alluded earlier. In the Umrah season, pilgrims travel by
scheduled flights. In the Hajj season as well, pilgrims travelling in
small groups organised by tour operator companies like mine travel on
scheduled flights. For large airlifts, the Saudi Hajj ministry
stipulates the use of chartered flights that will ensure that a lot of
pilgrims are airlifted over a short period. Imagine if you have to
travel on the few airlines doing scheduled flights to carry the large
contingent of more than 90,000 Nigerian pilgrims. More importantly, the
cost of a chartered flight is always higher as you will pay for both the
used leg and the unused return leg of the flight (outbound and inbound
flights). This is not surprising because international air travel laws
forbid a charter to pick passengers from the host airport after
discharging its passengers. The return flight is always empty and yet
the flight crew, all taxes and fuelling fees will still be paid. The
NCAA also confirmed this as they and the airlines are always present
during the negotiation stage to license the airlines to be used for
airlift. There was even a breakdown of the cost per head to the airline
on the day Alhaji Bankole made his presentation.
5) Allegation
H: The development levy the Committee alleged was being improperly used
is not paid into the account of the Chairman and he cannot access for
his personal use as it is domiciled in a special account with the CBN.
The committee was given this insight when it questioned the Chairman of
NAHCON but it was mysteriously omitted in the report.
6)
Allegations I, J and K: The allegation of giving Messrs Shuraka Al Khair
undue advantage is a lie. This part of the report is the most telling
of bias and vendetta. The process for choosing service providers by
NAHCON is not shrouded in mystery. It is well known to genuine and
experienced operators in the industry. No SPWB is coerced into choosing a
service provider. All NAHCON ensures is that providers meet the minimum
standards it sets and improves upon yearly. After shortlisting
successful service providers and licensing them, the states are
requested to choose their preferred provider. The majority have always
picked the company in question since before the time of the current
chairman. In fact, when the chairman of the Ad-Hoc Committee, Senator
Adamu Aliero, was the governor of his state, he personally used to
choose the same company.
In the same vein, NAHCON has never asked
any SPWB to choose a particular accommodation provider or caterer. They
only screen the companies and invite the SPWBs to make their choice
from the screened ones. Mr Ibrahim Suleiman, who has variously
petitioned the House and Senate to investigate the Chairman of NAHCON,
was actually working for a company owned by his Saudi wife, Island
Economic Ltd. This company defrauded the Kano State Pilgrims Welfare
Board by inflating the cost of accommodation and was thus blacklisted
from giving accommodation to the pilgrims. This was what the Committee
referred to as edging out Nigerian owned Saudi-based service providers.
What manner of lies are these?
I must continue with the rest of the piece in the third and final part next week, inshaa Allah.
Date Published: Friday, November 2nd, 2018
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