Court
Firm asks court to stop Ministry of Power from terminating N39.1bn metering project
A metering company, Ziklagsis Network Ltd, has prayed a Federal High Court in Abuja to restrain the Federal Ministry of Power and others from revoking the N39.1 billion meant for metering contract.
Ziklagsis Network Ltd, the plaintiff, filed the originating summons marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/576/2024, through its lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, before Justice James Omotosho.
The plaintiff sues the Federal Government of Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Power, Minister of Power, Debt Management Office, Providus Bank Ltd and De-Haryor Global Services Ltd as 1st to 6th defendants respectively.
The suit sought the sum of N1.1 billion in damages and for the cost of filing for the defendants’ alleged interference with the project, which it was granted the loan to execute and repay in seven years.
The company argued that based on Articles 3, 4,5,6,10, and 18(i),(ii),(iii),24 and 29(ii) of the Judgement Compromise Agreement it entered with the Power Ministry on Aug. 28, 2017, the ministry and the Federal Government had no power to withhold N39.1 billion granted it for the supply of electric meters in Nigeria.
Ziklagsis attributed the cause of its non-execution of the contract to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It submitted that there were calculated attempts by the Federal Government and the ministry to frustrate and sabotage its efforts in the performance of the terms of the Revalidated Tripartite Agreement as modified by the Addendum No. 2, “which attempts are done in utter bad faith with the ultimate end of truncating and or divesting the plaintiff of the benefit of the project.”
The firm further submitted that the defendants frustrated its efforts to execute the project by refusing to release the funds despite being awarded the contract and receiving the presidential approval on the compliance on its part.
In their joint response to the suit, the Federal Government and the Minister of Power argued that they acted in accordance with the agreement
Also in its counter affidavit, Providus Bank, through its lawyer, Adesegun Ajibola, SAN, described some of the averments in Ziklagsis’ affidavit as false and full of half-truths to mislead the court.
The bank said it was not aware of the terms of the agreement the company reached with the ministry.
According to the bank, the 5th defendant (Providus Bank) is not a party to the contract between the plaintiff and the 2nd respondent (ministry), its only relationship with the plaintiff is simply of a bank and customer with a fixed deposit account.
Similarly, in a counter affidavit, an electricity installation company, De-Haryor Global Services Ltd, informed the court that the suit was “brought in bad faith, and the court should not lend support for the plaintiff (Ziklagsis)’s action but should rather condemn it.”
In a reply through its counsel, Marcus Abu of the Justice Advocates, De-Haryor submitted that the contract was awarded to Ziklagsis to cushion the effects of the hardship faced by Nigerians in the estimated energy billing through the deployment of free pre-paid meters but the company denied Nigerians the benefit of the project.
It added that Ziklagsis had not placed anything before the court to demonstrate what it had done pursuant to its Exhibit ZNL 5 agreement while De-Haryor, on the other hand, had substantially executed the contract it had with it.
“By the provision of Article 5(d) of the JCA, the plaintiff (Ziklagsis) was given two years of moratorium within which to supply or provide electric meters in Nigeria according to the JCA,” De-Haryor said.
“Meanwhile, the plaintiff (Ziklagsis) did not invest any funds in the performance of same but the 1st and 3rd defendants (Federal Government and Minister of Power) had already given the sum of over N39 billion to the plaintiff for the execution of the metering project.
“Rather than perform its obligation under the contract, the plaintiff deposited the said sum in a fixed deposit.”
It argued that the mere fact that the Federal Government and Minister of Power had already paid the contract sum to Ziklagsis showed that the defendants had performed their obligations under the said contract.
“On the other hand, the plaintiff depositing the contract sum in a fixed deposit account is a clear indication that it had no intention to utilise the contract sum for the project intended by the JCA.
“Rather than declaring estoppel against the defendants as prayed in relief 1, the court should declare that the contract is already discharged by the plaintiff’s breach,” it prayed.
While questioning the plaintiff’s metering service agreement it executed with the Yola Disco and received the letter of drawdown from the Ministry of Power without supplying a single meter towards the project, it asked if the world was still being ravaged with COVID-19 pandemic till the time of filing this suit.
“It is common knowledge that COVID-19 did not last the whole of the year 2020,” De-Haryor said.
Justice Omotosho fixed Feb. 4 for the hearing of the suit.
De-Haryor joined the suit as an interested party after delivering on phase one of the barracks metering project for the Nigerian Army under the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) metering project.
