The Senate has asked the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to immediately wind-up and deregister some Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) subsidiaries allegedly created illegally by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
Members of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly also asked the relevant anti-graft agencies to accordingly probe into alleged irregular swap of the shares of agencies by some top officials of the privatisation agency apparently with the intention of depriving the government of the benefit from the asset.
These directives were contained in Resolution No 54 of a December 30, 2023 issued at the end plenary presided over by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
A copy of the resolution obtained by this newspaper on Monday also conveyed the recommendation by the lawmakers for the full recovery of the sum of N10 billion purportedly released by the Federal Ministry of Finance for the proposed NIPOST restructuring and recapitalisation.
The Senate asked its relevant standing committee in charge of fiscal prudence to liaise with the anti-graft agencies to investigate and recover all finances deployed in the transaction if found to have injudiciously utilised.
Some top officials of the BPE were said to have connived with their counterparts in NIPOST to list their names as shareholders of NIPOST Properties and Development Company and NIPOST Transport and Logistics Services Limited incorporated and registered with the CAC.
A review of the records of the CAC incorporated entities revealed that as of November 8, 2023, the affected individuals, including the Director-General of BPE, Alex Okoh, and a deputy director in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Alex M Adeyemi, were holding rights to one million shares each of the entities. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of NIPOST, Yahaya Abubakar Maimuna, was listed as the holder of a significant controlling interest in the subsidiaries of eight million shares.
The lawmakers in their resolution faulted these equity holdings by these private individuals to the detriment of the Federal Government, describing it as illegal and irregular and recommended their immediate winding-up and deregistration.
The Senate resolution is coming at a time the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, lamented the spate of mismanagement of most Federal Government owned and government linked entities and assets.
The Minister stressed the need for a comprehensive enumeration of these assets within and outside the country to establish the total value of public assets and properties.
But a senior official of the who is familiar with the issue, said the development involving the alleged equity swap deal in NIPOST was very disturbing, considering the vast value of its property and assets estimated at several trillions of Naira.
The official who requested for his identity to be revealed as he was not authorised to speak officially on the issue, expressed alarm at the prospect of these assets eventually falling into private hands through what he called “dubious share inheritance scheme.”
“The picture of the colossal loss to the country through these dubious schemes may not be obvious today. But give them about 15 years from today, when most of us would likely not be out of the scene, then one can imagine how much value from those assets the children of the perpetrators of these schemes would be bequeathed with.
“In the eyes of the law, whatever would be the value of those controversially acquired shares of those assets would be what their next of kins would claim, to the detriment of the government,” the official said.
Besides, the official noted that the alleged equity swap ignored established legal frameworks for such transactions, citing the example of similar arrangements under the recently enacted Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which allocated shares to corporate entities, not individuals.
Curiously, findings showed that after the government criticised the process adopted in transaction through a formal correspondence, the affected private individuals quickly reassigned their allocated shares in the two NIPOST subsidiaries to three government entities as follows: NIPOST (80 percent equity), BPE and the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) 10 percent each.
The controversial shareholding arrangement, analysts pointed out, has resulted in the fundamental restructuring of the ownership of NIPOST Properties and Development Company, with CAC, on January 2, 2024, listing the DG of BPE, Alex Okoh, and the Chairman of the Board of NIPOST, Yahaya Abubakar Maimuna, on its Beneficial Ownership and Persons With Significant Control (PSC) in NIPOST Properties and Development Company Limited respectively
The latest ownership structure updated the previous CAC record on November 3, 2023, at 5:25 PM, which showed Alex Okoh and Alex Musa Adeyemi with one million shares each, while Yahaya Abubakar Maimuna was credited with eight million shares.
Analysts have faulted BPE’s decision to hold direct shares in NIPOST, saying any direct involvement of any ministry, department and agency of government in direct shareholding contradicts established procedures, and gives strength to concerns about the legality and transparency of the original share swap deal.
Providing clarification on the issue, a senior official of the BPE said: “At the time the CAC registered the two NIPOST subsidiaries in 2020, the CAC portal only allowed individuals to be shareholders.
“There was no option of using companies as shareholders. This was because the Commission wanted to ensure accountability in shares ownership. Subsequently, the Companies And Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 became operational only in January 2021, six months after the companies were registered.
“The portal was thereafter updated recently to allow the companies hold shares, but with representatives. The shareholding of the NIPOST subsidiaries have duly been corrected to reflect the intent of the subscribers, and nothing more.”
