On Thursday the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo clarified that what he approved for
the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation when President Muhammadu Buhari was away on medical vacation
were financing loans and not contracts.
According to a statement by his Senior
Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the
Vice-President made the clarification while answering reporters’
questions after the groundbreaking ceremony of the multi-billion naira
Bonny-Bodo Road project, in Bonny, Rivers State.
Akande quoted Osinbajo as explaining
that the approvals he granted to the NNPC while he was Acting President
were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the
corporation and the IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
“These were financing loans. Of course,
you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that
had to procure. In some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners
have to secure loans and they need authorisation to secure those loans
while the President was away.
“The law actually provides for those
authorisations. So, I did grant two of them and those were presidential
approvals, but they are specifically for financing joint ventures and
they are loans not contracts,” Akande quoted the Vice-President as
saying.
Osinbajo’s spokesman recalled that he had earlier in the day gave a similar explanation on his Twitter handle, @akandeoj.
Akande had tweeted, “In response to
media inquiries on the NNPC Joint Venture financing arrangements, VP
Osinbajo, as Acting President, approved the recommendations after due
diligence and adherence to established procedures.
“This was, of course, necessary to deal
with huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which the Buhari administration
inherited, and to incentivise much-needed fresh investments in the oil
and gas sector.”
Meanwhile, the Pan Niger Delta Forum on
Thursday called on President Buhari to urgently appoint a substantive
Minister of Petroleum Resources to effectively run the activities of oil
and gas industry in the country.
PANDEF also came hard on the Group
Managing Director, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, saying that narrative available
clearly showed that he flouted the relevant provisions of the
constitution in the alleged $25bn contracts he awarded without recourse
to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.
In a statement signed by the
Coordinating Secretary of the group, Dr. Alfred Mulade, PANDEF, which is
the umbrella body for the Niger Delta leaders from the various ethnic
nationalities, expressed sadness with the manner the Presidency was
handling the issues.
It also condemned the manner by which
Kachikwu was allegedly sidelined despite being the chairman of the NNPC
board in the awards of contracts and appointments, adding that such
disdain was an insult on the people of the Niger Delta region from where
the nation’s oil and gas are produced.
PANDEF, which is under the leadership
of Chief Edwin Clark, demanded that the $25bn contracts and procurements
made by the NNPC should be revoked and re-awarded after undergoing a
thorough process of checks and balances.
The statement added, “The recent
appointments and promotions done by the GMD should be revoked and fresh
appointments and promotions should be done in accordance with the
provisions of the constitution and in line with Federal Character
Principles.
“This we intend to challenge at the
court of law. It should be made more competitive and transparent with
appropriate checks and balances and if the President must accept them,
Nigerians want to know the actual values of such contracts as the name
of those who bid and won the contract,” the statement further added.
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