Former General Manager, Plateau Publishing Corporation
(PPC), Publishers of The Nigeria Standard and Sunday Standard newspapers, Mr.
Jonathan Ishaku, became a victim of the immediate past administration because
of his insistence for contract's due process to be followed.
This came to light at the Judicial Commission of Inquiry
into the immediate past administration activities sitting at Azi Nyako Youth
Centre Dadin-Kowa in Jos, when he was invited to appear before the
commission to explain his role in the purchase of City Line Express
Machine to PPC.
While narrating his inexplicable suspension as GM on
the 1st of May, 2014, Ishaku said, on assumption of office in 2009, there was a
proposal by one Turac Investment for the purchase of one Machine called
DGM Press at the cost of N396,000,000 that time, but on market survey, they
found out that the Machine was already defunct and the company has been sold
off.
According to him, in purchasing a press, cares ought to be
taken interms of durability and availability of spare parts for the maintenance
skills, hence what informed their market survey which they discovered that, the
machine was not in existence in the publishing industry in Nigeria and has been
faced out.
He said, "so, I wrote a Memo to the then
Governor suggesting the most current machine in the market called City
Line Express. The City Line Express, at that time was only One hundred and
Fifty Million Naira, but there was no further discussion on it until 2011 when
I was asked to forward again a request which I did.
"We requested the Manufacturer Representative in
Lagos to forward the current price which was 1.5 million dollar (N228,000,000)
and we attached it to Ministry of Information and the Commissioner now wrote to
the Governor, dated 15th August, 2011 and was approved by Governor Jonah Jang
on 3rd February, 2012 but petitioned by the first contractor.
" When I was asked to explain why we did not consider
his proposal, I explained why that machine was not suitable; 1. The
Manufacturers have been faced out. 2. The City Line Express is the most popular
Machine in Nigeria now-many spare parts are available both locally and
internationally and many newspapers have it and are maintaining it. I explained
that to the Ministry, the Suspended GM explained.
However, while the process of MoU was being drown up
with all the taxes and contractual obligations by the Indian representative
were carried, the then Commissioner for Information and Commissioner, Pastor
Yiljap Abraham, later announced to him that, the Governor have cancelled it
because they understood that it was a small machine.
Ishaku, revealed to the Commission that similar machine and
other items were advertised again and same machine was eventually, purchased at
the cost of N378,500,000 against Turac Investment's initial cost of
N227,000,000 using the same specification.
To explain why the newspapers are Still not on circulation,
the former GM said, " I left the office on May 1st, 2014 when I was forced
out of office because I insisted that the contractor should follow our terms of
contract. Even, certain aspects of the contract were bridged among which, was
the resistance I mounted on the award of Pre-Press (Computer Plate
Machine)."
Meanwhile, the Commission has ordered the Contractor, former
Commissioner, former DFS, former Cashier and those said to be trained to appear
before its sitting at the Azi Nyako Youth Centre Dadin-kowa Jos, to explain
their various roles.
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