Justice Baba Hussein of the FCT High Court in Maitama on Tuesday adjourned a breach of contract case filed against China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) by Enigma Engineering Company.
Enigma Engineering Company had taken CCECC to court for failure to honour the terms of an agreement when the latter engaged the service of Enigma as a consultant in a project.
Mr. Oluyele Delana, (SAN), the Counsel to CCECC, while leading Mr. Lukman Sanni, a staff of Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) in evidence, said no company could practice without registration.
Sanni said that any individual or company that engaged in consultancy or construction without due registration by COREN would amount to quackery.
Sanni said no company or firm could be allowed to practice without registration, adding that an individual could only be licensed by COREN to practice specific engineering.
He said that anyone who violated COREN Act by practicing outside the ambit of what he was trained to do or the course he studied would be deemed a quack.
Delana, however, told the court that he had one more witness in the case, but the witness in China who he had made efforts to bring to Nigeria before now, but for his ill health.
He craved the indulgence of the court to grant his client another day to enable his other witness appear as he had fully recovered from the sickness.
Mr. Anthony Adeniyi, the Counsel to the Plaintiff, however, said that contrary to what Sanni said that a firm must register with COREN before practicing, the current Act only permitted registration of individuals by COREN.
He also faulted Sanni’s statement quoting from the current Act of COREN that no law of COREN mandated a firm or a company to register before practicing.
Adeniyi said that CCECC had entered a facilitation consultancy contract with Enigma Engineering Company before it reneged on the terms of agreement and refused to settle his client.
According to him, the percentage CCECC entered to pay Enigma Engineering Company after the execution of the project was not paid even after CCECC was paid by their client.
Adeniyi said that CCECC told his client that the contract had failed and that they were not ready to pay him any further.
Justice Hussein, however, adjourned the case until December 30th and December 31 in continuation of hearing and to enable the defense counsel bring his client from China.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7VxEJQOwYs]
