Crude oil swap: ‘Clean-up the rot in NNPC’ – Reps tell Buhari

threaten to arrest Kachikwu, PPMC MD

The Ad-hoc Committee investigating the offshore processing arrangement and the crude oil swap contracts, on Thursday, threatened to arrest Emmanuel Kachikwu, the newly appointed minister of state for petroleum resources, should he fail to submit details of the contract agreements by next Wednesday.

Zakari Mohammed (APC-Kwara), who chaired the Ad-hoc Committee, issued the threat notice at the post-Ad-hoc Committee meeting held at the National Assembly complex, Abuja, urged President Muhammadu Buhari, who doubles as minister of petroleum resources, to clean up the existing ‘rot’ in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

Mohammed, who gave the update on the work of the Ad-hoc Committee so far, accused NNPC, Petroleum Product Marketing Company (PPMC) and crude oil department of frustrating the assignment of the committee.

He explained that the agencies had failed to provide relevant documents on the transactions including contract bids, awards and transfer of bids, contract agreements and completion of contract certificate between 2010 and 2014, despite several letters written by the committee.

Mohammed, who threatened to impose subpoena on any erring officials, however applauded the compliance of Nigerian Custom Service, Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

He said: “While the Nigerian Customs Service, NEITI and DPR have complied with the letter from the committee by making their submissions, ‎We are having difficulties with the NNPC, the Crude Oil division and the PPMC and you are all aware pursuant to section 88 and 89, we have been empowered to expose corruption at the same time be able to straighten the books.

“But as it appears that the NNPC is trying to subvert our investigation, we have written them a letter just like every other agency those ones have responded, the NNPC hasn’t responded, the crude division and the PPMC and we wrote a remainder, the only responded passively on Tuesday saying that they need more time.

“If by 12 noon on Wednesday we did not get the submissions from them, we will allow the full weight of the law to take its cause including subpoena. We will take actions.”

Mohammed, who doubles as chairman, House Committee on Basic Education said the actions of the management of the NNPC towards the ad-hoc committee shows that the rot in the apex oil company may still, be there.

He said “we want to use this medium to send a message to the minister of petroleum and the minister of state petroleum that the most talked about change has not been effected in the NNPC, the rot is still there because what we have witnessed in the last few days is a clear case of irresponsible behaviour for those who should have the figures and facts to aide this investigation, we are talking of billions of naira lost.”

The chairman, who noted the committee had identified some financial losses in the transactions, added that there were various discrepancies in the documents submitted by various agencies involved in the transactions so far.

The House through its resolution mandated the Adhoc Committee to conduct “forensic investigation into the allegations of malpractices by NNPC with particular reference to crude oil swap contracts.”

To this end, the House mandated the Committee to probe the 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day awarded to the nine companies including, Sahara Group, Aiteco, Duke Oil, Mercuria, Glencore, Taleveras Nig. Ltd., Etena Oil and Gas, Tranfigura, a Swiss firm, and Ontario Oil and Gas.

Speaking on the motion, Michael Enyong (PDP-Akwa Ibom) submitted that a barrel of crude amounts to 159 litres and if 445,000 barrels multiply a barrel, it would amount to 70,775000 litres per day, whereas Nigeria daily consumption is 40,000,000 litres per day.

Enyong had noted that the House should be disturbed “that the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in its 2009-2011 and 2012 reports had ascertained that there was massive staggering revenue loss of N8 billion due to discrepancy between the value of the crude oil given out and the refined products delivered.