EFCC Slams Eight-Count Charge on P&ID Director

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday arraigned the commercial director of Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), Mr Muhammed Kuchazi, on eight charges bordering on money laundering before Justice Folashade Giwa-Ogunbanjo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Mr Kuchazi was arraigned alongside his company, Kore Holdings Limited. The company is the first defendant in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/319/2020 while Mr Kuchazi is the second defendant.

The EFCC counsel, Mr Bala Sanga, told the court that the second defendant is the sole signatory to the company and would have benefitted the sum of $300 million in the P&ID’s $9.6 billion judgment deal against Nigeria should the case had succeeded.

However, after the counts were read to him, Mr Kuchazi pleaded not guilty.

Mr Sanga implored the court to remand the suspect in Kuje Correctional Centre, pending the determination of the matter. But Mr Kuchazi’s counsel, Mr Aniah Okwen, moved an oral bail application for his client on medical ground.

Mr Okwen urged the court to allow Mr Kuchazi to be kept at the EFCC custody while praying the court for a short time to file the bail application.

Justice Giwa-Ogunbanjo adjourned the matter to April 27 and 28, 2021, for trial while the hearing of his bail application is fixed for February 4, 2021.

Business Post had reported that P&ID, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands, won a $9.6 billion arbitration award against the Nigerian government after the collapse of a 2010 gas project.

Nigeria successfully sought the right to appeal a previous ruling that would have converted the arbitration award to a judgment, which would make it easier for P&ID to seize the country’s assets.

In September 2020, a Commercial Court in England ordered the release of a $200 million guarantee put in place as security in respect of the execution of the much-discredited $10 billion arbitral claims between the country and P&ID.