Nigeria House of Representatives yesterday raised alarm over the piling judgement debt profile of the federal government totaling N80 billion.
The house detailed its committee on justice to ascertain whether or not ongoing and pending debts are properly incurred and genuine.
Federal lawmakers fear that the country’s justice ministry and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) may be encouraging the procurement of judgement debts against the federal government through negligence in prosecution, exposing scarce public funds and tax payers’ money to misuse and waste.
A motion sponsored by Robinson Uwak (Akwa Ibom/PDP) queried the “apparent zeal” of the AGF and justice minister to pay judgement debts instead of diligently defending litigation. The lawmaker said the situation does not reflect commitment to discharge the ministry’s fundamental duty of protecting the interest of the federal government.
Uwak cited the case of the AGF’s commenced payment of over N14 billion in judgement debts to a telecommunication firm despite the fact that the case was still subject to litigation in court.
“In the particular case of Interstella Communication Limited VS NITEL, in which the plaintiff is claiming among others, the sum of N14, 256,000,000.00 which case is not finally determined since it is still before the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General has commenced payment of this claim to Interstella Communication even where NITEL insists that it had already paid Interstella the sum of N52, 349,460.00 only pursuant to an arbitration resolution,” Uwak said.
The Lower House presided by its Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal further urged President Goodluck Jonathan to direct the immediate suspension of the payment of the telecommunication firm’s judgement claims and other judgements debts, pending verification by the committee of the house. The justice committee is expected to submit its report within 21 days.