The management of the Value Trust Investment Limited, has reacted to what it called the deliberate distortions and misrepresentations by the spokesperson of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in what it calls a “falsehood and campaign of calumny” on it and its former chairman, Dr. Doyin Okupe.
The acting managing director of Value Trust, Mr. Sesan Womiloju, said on Thursday that the company was being compelled to debunk the claims of Mr. Mohammed in respect of a road contract that the company got from Benue State saying that the company was only mobilized 691 million naira out of a contract sum of 2.3 billion naira.
Backing his refutal of the claims made by CAN’s Mohammed, Mr. Womiloju provided facts and figures in his stance that the Value Trust Investment never absconded from its contractual obligations to the Benue State government.
Below is a press release on the issue, made available to sharpedgenews.com today:
Benue State Rural Road Contract, Value Trust Investment Limited and Dr. Okupe – The Facts
For sometime now, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the national publicity secretary of ACN, has embarked on deliberate falsehood and malicious campaign of calumny against our company and former chairman, Dr. Doyin Okupe in respect of a road contract with benue state government. We are compelled to debunk this wicked mis-information and set the record straight hence, we hereby present some salient facts.
contract value n2.3bn
mobilization fees n691m
deductions from mobilization fees:
tax and vat -69.7m
net mobilization fee n621m (see appendix 1 )
further deductions from net mobilization fee:
payments by value trust investment limited to benue state govt its agencies and banks:-
1. processing fee 1% n23m
2. project management fee 1% n23m
3. advance payment guarantee fees to lead bank ltd; 0.5% n13m
4. payment to benue state rural development agency (berda) for equipment refurbishing and subsequent leasing. n20m
total amount deducted from mobilization fees. n79m
amount received after all net of deductions from mobilization fees n621- 79 = n542m
mobilization expenses
1. mportation of chemicals from south africa (receipt acknowledged by benue state government n200m
2. additional equipment (reciept also acknowledged by the ministry) n130m
3. site acquisition and preparation ,workers camping office and project variables.
Including purchase of 2 project vehicles for benue state ministry of works
N20m
total n350m
Actual cash balance with value trust after all deductions and cost of mobilization
n542-n350 =n192m
The estimate of total works, done as of january 2007 and assented to by the commissioner of works, was about 40% (see appendix 2) which is equal to about n920m. By june 2007 after our company engaged the services of 7 sub-contractors as approved by the ministry, the company submitted a work certificate (iv) valued at n358m which was never paid and has not been paid till date.
Benue state government issued a letter of determination of the contract in july 2009 which was delivered to our engineers while still working on site.the first sets of roads handed over was contained in a letter ref mow/civ/con/134/154 dated 11/8/2004 and signed by director of civil engineering.
From the above the facts as established are:
Value trust investment limited collected mobilization fee but never bolted away as lai mohammed is propagating in the media. We in fact remained on site till july 2009 when the state issued a letter of determination, which halted the contract.
2. Value trust investment limited upon receipt of mobilization actually took over the sites six months after the awards were issued, due to delays by the benue state government in handing over the list of roads to be worked on.
3. Value trust investment limited worked continously statewide up till 2009, and received further certificates 2&3 for work done totaling n245 million while the actual amount received by our company after deductions was n176 million.
4. The state ministry of works nominated 4 sub-contractors who collected mobilizations and payments from value trust investment limited to the tune of about n45m and never delivered.yet the minstry failed to assist us to collect money paid to these contractors. see appendix 3 & 4).
5. Disputes arose after the engagement of another set of sub-contractors to whom value trust investment limited gave bank guarantees . these company performed creditably and the aggregate of work done culminated in the preparation of a work certificate amounting to n358 million duly received by the ministry of works in june 2007. but in total violation of the terms of the contract operation this was never processed or paid by the government till date (see appendix 5). this dispute was carried over to the new administration of governor gabriel suswam.
6. Another fact is that even though section 8b of the contract agreement stipulates that variation will be considered if there is sufficient change in the prices of petroleum products .when the price of diesel was increased from n25/liter in 2004 to over n90/liter in 2007 the state government did not to approve our repeated request for variations, thereby creating critical challenge in the way of the project . (see appendix 6a&6b & 10).
7. The new administration of governor gabriel suswam which inherited the stalemate did not honour our request, suggested solutions or pay of our outstanding dues.
8. The matter was referred to the efcc contrary to the terms of the contract which stipulated that any dispute arising from the contract shall be settled by arbitration. however the efcc thereafter investigated the matter for over 18 months and at the end of the investigations no culpable charges were proferred against the company or any of its directors.
9. The state attorney general barr. chive kaave thereafter summoned us to several meetings and subsequently informed us that the government had opted for arbitration.
10. Value trust investment limited made several attempts to contact the said attorney general after this but did not get any response till the state executive council was dissolved
11. Up till today, there has not been any communication in any form from the benue state government to our company on this matter, despite several efforts and letters to the state government
12. It is important to stress that the benue state contract was awarded to messrs value trust investement limited, whose board of directors comprises of both nigerian and foreign nationals and not personal venture. clearly the dispute between value trust and benue state government on this is purely a civil matter with no element of criminality or fraud whatsoever on the part of the company or any of her directors including our former chairman Dr. Doyin Okupe.
Sesan Womiloju
AG Managing Director
Value Trust Investment Ltd