Kriston-Lally Plc, a developer partner to provide affordable Housing project for Nigeria workers yesterday said the company is preparing a legal action against the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which is her partners on the project for going against the terms of the MOU.
A statement by the Group Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer (GMD/CEO) of the company, Alhaji Mustapha Umar Madawaki said the action became necessary due to the reimbursement of all costs, money invested by Kriston Lally shareholders and stakeholders in the project, plus damages.
Alhaji Umar Madawaki said In March 2013, Kriston Enterprises of which Kriston Lally is a legal affiliate entered into an MOU and subsequent Contractual Agreement with the NLC.
According to him, everyone knows that Kriston Lally was the developer partner while NLC was the promoter of the project, adding this led to the NLC encouraging its members to join the affordable housing project and to pay deposits of not less than 10% into the Project account under the X-Path system of Zenith Bank Plc.
“Kriston Lally is preparing legal action against the NLC for the reimbursement of all costs, money invested by Kriston Lally shareholders and stakeholders in the project, plus damages. Basically, Kriston Lally worked and worked, spent money and energy preparing to construct, but the NLC never provided a plot of land and apparently had no intention or ability to do so. The NLC, basically, scammed us either as part of one of their political games or so that certain NLC leaders could benefit personally from the project”.
He said there is another part of the contract which the NLC has failed to mention to the public, and this part of the contract is absolutely fundamental, not only to the success of the project but it is fundamental to the very beginning – initialisation of the project.
“There are two articles in the contract, that is p.1.10 and p. 5.1 which clearly lay out the responsibility and obligation of the NLC to provide the land on which the developer, Kriston Lally was to, or is to build houses for the Nigerian workers.
“NLC came out in strong terms rejecting the Apo plots that they are “AMAC AWARDED” plots, meanwhile Gosa was overtaken by the Centenary project as communicated to us by FCT. The payments that made were based upon a direct agreement between me and the NLC President, which later he denied knowledge of and claimed that I had forged his signature.
The GMD also lamented that due to inability of the NLC to secure the land, financing of the project was also put in difficulty.
He also said that in October last year, NLC ordered that we should stop collecting deposits from the subscribers, we posted that on our Website and sent bulk SMS text messages to all those who subscribed. We also informed the Bank in writing to freeze the X-Path system and to automatically block further payments.
However, due to pressures form so many people and in particular from the leadership of NLC, especially Mr Rotimi, the NLC accountant, and one Honourable NLC staff, whose name evades me, it was decided to allow new clients to pay deposits into our operation account, which was in existence since 2012.
“This operational account were also used for the financing of Kriston Lally’s contribution to the project: Acquisition of land, payment of salaries, certain administration costs and cash provided to the NLC president upon his requests and treats.
“It is worthy of mention that 60% of our employees were nominated by NLC Leadership, which meant that we were responsible for training them since they came to us without professional experience”.
While reacting to the development, the General Secretary of NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson said the congress would respond accordingly if the matter had gone to Court.
He said the Congress had earlier ordered that no subscriber pay money into the say Bank Account for the project due the inability of the Kriston-Lally to deliver to the workers the houses as agreed in the MOU.
