Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
Ten Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have asked the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately prosecute General Electric International (GE) and Rockson Engineering Nigeria Limited for fraud and deliberate sabotage allegedly committed against Nigeria as captured in a probe by the House of Representatives.
While addressing journalists in Abuja, the leader of the groups and the National Coordinator of Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative, Solomon Adodo said that the activities of GE and Rockson were bleeding the country to death financially.
He alleged that billions of naira had been lost with nothing to justify what he described as “humongus pillaging of our resources” by both companies.
According to him, “The House of Representatives in 2008 constituted an Ad-hoc committee which did not only thoroughly berate and depreciate the fraudulent, outlandish and sordid acts of GE and its allies, notable among whom was Rockson.”
Adodo said it was regrettable that since 1999 Nigeria had invested over $20 billion to ensure stable power supply but in spite of the huge investment, the Nigerian power sector continues to wobble due to inglorious activities of GE and its conspirators.
“As a starting point, during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, between 2003 and 2007, the Federal Government of Nigeria came up with an intervention programme in the power sector to improve generation with investments in a number of gas to power projects. For inexplicable and unjustifiable reasons, the projects were awarded without any bid and flagrant breach of relevant procurement laws and due process”.
The report specifically recommended that GE, Rockson and their cronies be subjected to criminal investigation and prosecution.
He said it wasI saddening to note that General Electric International and her Nigerian business partner Rockson Engineering Nigeria Limited, had escaped appropriate sanctions that ordinarily should be visited on them for their conspicuous roles in the fraud and deliberate sabotage committed against Nigeria as revealed by the House report.
“It is therefore highly imperative that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to expedite action to halt this vociferous decimation of our economy while hounding the individuals behind these crimes to jail to serve as deterrent to other individuals or entities.”
