Ajuri Ngelale, special presidential envoy on climate action, says President Bola Tinubu recently cancelled a dubious 15 percent payment to a climate change consultant.
Speaking on Wednesday on Sunrise Daily — a Channels Television programme — Ngelale said the payments would have cost Nigeria billions of dollars eventually.
“I’m going to break a little bit of news this morning by informing our people that when we came into this office, we found that there was an agreement within one of the climate institutions that essentially stipulated that a friend of some government at some point would collect 15 percent of all grants and donations payable to the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the basis of almost no work done. That is the level of rot,” Ngelale said.
“This is related to all the platforms of all the various climate related activities of the government. Someone was able to get an agreement.
“Fortunately for us, very little damage was done in terms of monies paid to this person. So we were able to find that not much has been paid to this person because we caught it early.
“But if we had not caught it when we caught it, if we had not come in when we came in, the damage could have been incalculable because you’re dealing with potentially billions of dollars over the course of time that will come into this sector as a result of the work that’s going on.
“We were able to come in and that agreement has been cancelled. The president was made aware of it. I brought it to his attention and there’s really a lot going on in these spaces where people always look at oil and gas, telecoms, financial services regulation, CBN, NPA and many of these other big tax collection agencies.”
Ngelale added that on his watch as presidential envoy on climate change, wasteful expenditure around sub-contracting and consultancy would no longer be the order of the day.
He added that the malaise of “special interests” was responsible for Nigeria’s bloated delegations at previous climate change conferences.
Ngelale, who doubles as the president’s special adviser on media and publicity, added that Nigeria would not decelerate investments in oil and gas on the basis of a “clean energy” pursuit.
He said the Tinubu administration would be pursuing a “dual track” of “clean offshore energy” and renewables, adding that “we are not going to be myopic”.
“One of the major problems is that we do have energy poverty in the country. And we can’t align with anyone who is saying decelerate investment in energy sourcing that is pivotal to the present and future of the Nigerian economy,” he added.
“We will not sign up to anything that has to do with deceleration in gas investment in particular… particularly when you understand that emissions from the oil and gas sector in our country contribute such an insignificant portion of global emissions. That is not even a serious conversation to be had.”
On Tuesday, Ngelale said the presidency has decided to slash the budget for COP29 — the next climate change conference — by N10 billion.
Last year, Nigeria had 1,411 delegates at the COP28 in Dubai.
The size of the Nigerian delegation sparked outrage amid a rhetoric of fiscal discipline from government.
Ngelale said an audit revealed unnecessary spending and attendees who “had no business” at the conference.
