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El Rufai: “I complied with the BPE Act”
Press statement Thur Nov 24,2011
El-Rufai
Mallam Nasir El Rufai is neither surprised nor shocked by the
reported recommendations of the Senate’s ad-hoc committee that
recently investigated the privatisation process. But he
authorises this clarification of facts, lest a baseless report
should by default be taken seriously. He categorically states
that as BPE DG, approvals for privatisation issues were sought
and received from the National Council on Privatisation (NCP),
then chaired by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. That was the
requirement of the law, and the BPE’s compliance with it during
his leadership was total. The Senate Committee is invited to
make public any instance
- even just one - where he breached the sales approval
process.
When Mallam El Rufai appeared before the Senate’s ad-hoc
committee on privatisation on 11 August 2011, he had no
illusions about the results such committees produce, given his
previous experience. Prior to El Rufai’s presentation, Ahmed
Lawan, chair of the committee, said that the public hearing was
not a witch-hunt, and El Rufai retorted that it was up to the
committee to demonstrate that.
Anybody who followed that day’s proceedings would recall that
the questions asked after El Rufai’s presentation were mainly
seeking his advise on how to improve the privatisation process.
When Senator Lawan assumed that he had found a smoking gun in
the matter of monies retained by the BPE to pay transaction
costs, El Rufai candidly explained the mechanisms and processes
of the bidding process that necessitated this operational move
that was approved by the NCP on 24 June 2002.
The strange recommendation that he be reprimanded for an offence
he did not commit follows a tradition of shoddy investigation
that does no credit to the Senate. Legislation and oversight are
serious matters, and it is expected that people charged with
such functions would truly apply themselves, avail themselves of
cognate expertise and exercise due care so that the reports of
such proceedings would be suffused with the kind of integrity
that begets respect.
When Mallam El-Rufai gets a complete copy of the widely-quoted
report, he will consider whether additional clarifications and
other options, including and not limited to seeking judicial
review of every sentence that impugns his public service record
and reputation, are required.
Signed.
Muyiwa Adekeye
Media Advisor to Mallam Nasir El Rufai
24 November 2011
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
COK.2”
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