Oil probe: Reps panel declares $210m signature bonuses missing
The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing the oil and gas sector from 1999 to date has declared $210m signature bonuses paid by two oil companies missing.
The amount was realised from the oil block bid rounds conducted by the Department of Petroleum Resources in 2005.
The committee said during its public sitting in Abuja on Thursday that Shell Untra-Deep Nigeria Limited paid $210m for OPL 245, out of which the DPR’s financial record showed only $1m.
It added that another firm, Zebra, paid $20m for OPL 248 which reflected in the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative records, but showed $19m in that of the DPR.
“The panel is looking for $209m paid by Shell Ultra-Deep. The NEITI report says that Zebra paid $20m on OPL 248, but the DPR information I have is that Zebra paid $19m,” the Chairman of the committee, Mr. Igo Aguma, said.
However, the suspended DPR Director, Mr. Tony Chukwueke, told the committee that the negotiation that resulted in the $210m Shell Ultra-Deep payment was beyond the level of the agency.
He therefore pleaded with the committee to give him time to return to the DPR so as to examine the documents before it.
The committee also queried the processes that the selective bid rounds of 2003 followed when OPLs 233, 251 and 257 were sold.
A former DPR director, Mr. Mark Ofurhe, told the committee that the department carried out the exercise based on a memo from a former Special Assistant to the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Funsho Kupolokun.
Ofurhe explained that Kupolokun acted on behalf of the then Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Alhaji Rulwani Lukeman.
Asked who the minister of Petroleum Resources was, the DPR officials present found it difficult to say that it was Obasanjo, who was also the President.
However, at a point, Ofurhe acknowledged that the Minister of Petroleum Resources then was Obasanjo.
The question on who was the approving authority of oil block allocations was answered by the DPR Adviser on Legal Matters, Mrs. Elizabeth Akah.
She said that Obasanjo signed her regulations (legal instruments) as the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
“We were never bold enough (DPR officials) to say that the former President was the minister. I have a couple of memos from me which he signed as President and Minister of Petroleum Resources,” Akah added.
Her submission made a member of the committee, Mr. Leo Ogor, to read Section 138 of the 1999 Constitution, which states that the President shall not hold any other executive position, other than that of the President.
Ogor added that by virtue of section 147 of the constitution which vested the power to approve all ministerial nominees in the Senate, Obasanjo had erred in law by performing the role of petroleum minister without being ever presented to the Senate for approval as one.
Reacting to Ogor’s position, Ofurhe pleaded with the committee not to drag him into politics.
“That is beyond me. That is a political issue which is beyond me,” he said.
The panel members condemned selective bidding and marginal fields farming (allocation), saying they were open to corruption and abuses.
They also criticised the DPR for keeping the country’s oil fields data abroad without regard to its economic and security implications.
Chukwueke had told the committee that the Nigerian Civil War (1967 to 1970) forced the country to locate the data abroad, but added that efforts had been on since 2005 to repatriate the
No comments:
Post a Comment