Osinbajo denies Approving NNPC Contracts

Fri, Oct 13, 2017 | By publisher


Oil & Gas

 

VICE President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has denied approving contracts for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, instead he admitted only approving financial arrangements for funding joint venture cash call.
His denial followed media reports that he was the one who approved the $26 billion contracts which Ibe Kachikwu, minister of petroleum resources alleged in a petition to President Mohammed Buhari that Maikanti Baru, group managing director of NNPC awarded without going through due process.
Approached by reporters after the ground-breaking multi-billion Naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State,  Osinbajo, explained specifically 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 IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
Said he: “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.
“Earlier today, I had tweeted on the same matter thus: 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 incentivize much needed fresh investments in the oil and gas sector,” said Laolu Akande, senior special assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President on October 12.

–  Oct 12, 2017 @ 06:35 GMT /

 

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