Rt Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Ameachi
The Honorable Minister for Transport, Rt Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi was at AIT in regards to the $500m loan from the Chinese Government.
The Minister in his reactions stated that there is no contract without an agreement and one of the terms that this one contains, is that you’re not signing away the sovereignty of the country as been speculated on the social media.
Amaechi in a tweet further revealed that you give a sovereign guarantee; but that he is ashamed of those who interpret it the wrong way.
What the clause does is to say to you, I expect you to pay according to those terms and conditions. If you don’t pay, don’t wave your immunity at me (the lender) when I come to collect the collateral you put forward.”
Speaking on the immunity waiving, Amaechi said, the waiving of immunity simply means in trade parlance that I’m not giving you this loan free of charge. Just like if you go to take a loan from the bank, the moment you don’t pay, they go after the assets you put down. And people are politicising it.”
These loans are not given to us, they are paid directly to the contractors. Once we sign that the job has been done, they pay the contractor. And this has never been done before.
These loans are not paid here, so you can’t even steal it. What we do is ensure that the work is done. We hired an Italian company that goes with our engineers in the ministry to ensure that the Chinese meet the European standard, so that there are no fake things or poorly done work.
When they check and say yes, this has been done & to the standard approved, then they pass it on to us, we sign and approve that the work has been done. It is then sent to the Federal Ministry of Finance, who append their signature and pass it on to China Exim Bank who then pays the contractor, the minister added.
