Nigeria First (Abuja)
21 September 2004
Abuja — The Federal Government on 20 September placed an embargo on the award of contracts to Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited (HENSL), an oil service company linked to United States (US) Vice President Dick Cheney.
This is as a result of what Government has termed "negligent conduct, which led to the loss of two ionizing radioactive sources from Nigeria in 2002." Thus far Halliburton has also failed to cooperate with government authorities in ensuring the return of the sources to Nigeria.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Ufot Joseph Ekaette, who announced the decision in a statement in Abuja, said that President Olusegun Obasanjo had approved the ban until further directives on the matter.
The two radioactive materials, which contained caesium-137, were reported missing by Halliburton while in transit between the southern Nigerian oil cities of Warri and Port Harcourt in December 2002. Efforts by the Federal Government to recover the lost radioactive materials since 2002, which has taken government officials to Germany where the materials were transferred, have not yielded results.
A committee headed by the Minister of Justice, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi, which was set up to probe the theft, subsequently submitted an interim report to the President. The report claimed that the hand-held materials were later intercepted by German authorities at a steel recycling plant in Bavaria.
Although the materials are primarily used to X-ray oil pipelines for cracks, they could also be used to build a "dirty bomb" (nuclear bomb not made to specifications).
Nigeria subsequently reported the loss to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and lodged a formal protest on the matter to Germany and the United State (US). However, Germany refused Nigeria's request to repatriate the materials and instead returned them to Halliburton, which, in turn, moved them to the US in January this year.
The Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NNRA) had in March suspended Halliburton from carrying out any activity involving the use, importation, transportation and transfer of radioactive sources in Nigeria pending the return of the missing materials.
The House of Representatives had earlier passed a resolution seeking the exclusion of Halliburton from handling any oil contracts in the nation's petroleum industry, following its role in the $180 million bribery scam during the construction of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 Nigeria First. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
