Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday
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.
Punch Report
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