The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC on Thursday September 19, 2019, secured the conviction of commercial director of Process and Industrial Developments Limited, P&ID directors identified as Mohammed Kuchazi and the company’s director of the process, Adamu Usman before Justice I. E. Ekwo of Federal High Court, sitting in Maitama, Abuja.
The judge sentenced the company, incorporated in British Virgin Island to wind up in Nigeria and its properties, forfeited to the federal government.
The P&ID Directors were arraigned on 11-count charges, bordering on obtaining by false pretence; dealing in petroleum products without an appropriate license; money laundering and failure to register P&ID with the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML) as required by law, amounting to economic sabotage against the Nigerian state.
One of the charges reads: “That you, Process and Industrial Development Limited, being a company, incorporated in the British Virgin Island, Michael Quinn (deceased), Brendan Cahill (at large), Neil Hitchcock (deceased), Muhammad Kuchazi and Grace Taiga on or about the 11th of January, 2010 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court with intent to defraud made a false statement in Paragraph 8 (g) of the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) to wit: the parties are aware that the 24-inch Adanga Pipeline, presently under construction from the Addax operated OML 123 directly to Calabar and due for completion in 2010 which part of the said agreement you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 362 (a) of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 364 of the same law.”
The defendants pleaded guilty to all the eleven count charges.