Emma Amaize and Uduma Kalu
2 August 2008
CONTRARY to Engineer Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua's claim that the Nigeria National Petroleum Company, (NNPC) paid $12m to militants to guard its pipelines in Delta State, Saturday Vanguard can authoritatively reveal that the oil giant paid only $315, 000. Details from the NNPC indicate that the oil company made the payment to a security company that handled the Chanomi Creek crude pipeline contract.
The company, Saturday Vanguard gathered, is owned by a citizen of Delta State. However, NNPC was said to have earlier paid $12m to unknown people or company for the same job but the job was not executed before the contract was awarded to FENOG. In fact, the job was sublet to FENOG.
Exonerating Engr. Yar'Adua of the payment since it was made before the GMD took office, the source, however said, "The details should be in the handover notes to Engr. Yar'Adua by his predecessor.
He should check and find out who collected the money and for what. But if you are talking about the repairs of the Chanomi crude oil pipeline, I am aware that FENONG was paid $105, 000", the NNPC source said.
Last Tuesday, July 22, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Engr. Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua told the House of Representatives Committee on Finance investigating remittances into the Federation Accounts by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that $12 million was paid to militants to protect the Chanomi Creek crude pipeline when repairs were effected on it, last year.
Yar'Adua was quoted to have told the Committee that "The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger-Delta. We paid militants $12 million in two months because we are losing $81 million to the problem of Chanomi pipeline in Delta State."
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) was the first to deny receiving any payment from NNPC. In a statement signed by its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, MEND disassociated itself from the NNPC $12million payment claim to militants for pipeline protection.
The group however acknowledged that huge payments were made to some criminal gangs in Delta State as protection fee, adding, "From our knowledge, the NNPC disbursed over $25million for the scam, which was shared by the top commanders of the military Joint Task Force, senior government officials in the Delta state Governor's office, top management staff in the NNPC and the Presidency."
But NNPC in a counter reaction by its Group General Manager (Public Affairs), Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, said Yar'Adua was quoted out of context, and that the contract that was awarded for the security of the pipeline was not to a militant group but to a community-based company based on the proposal of the communities.
His words, "We did not pay MEND or any militant group. All we did was to award the pipeline repairs contract to a community-based company and some community group who assured us that they can protect the lines were also engaged by the corporation."
Delta State government has also denied MEND's accusations, saying that its government is against payment of ransom to militants.
Commander of the Joint Task Force on the Niger Delta, Brigadier-General Nanven Rimtip, also dismissed the allegation that the task force shared $25 million with the NNPC.
But MEND said it stands by its story. MEND spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, in a response to an electronic inquiry by Saturday Vanguard on the award of the security contract to a firm and not a militant group said, "The fact is that the GMD of the NNPC gave the true detail of what happened.
Any other statement after that by the NNPC is damage control. Using a company as a cover is not new in perfecting a fraud in Nigeria."
However, the NNPC source said that "This $12 million thing is a deal between some top officials of the NNPC and some people who claimed that they would protect the pipelines.
The government should probe and find out what actually happened to the money because the money was paid out to people who did not do any job during the regime of the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. It was not paid by the Engr.
Yar'Adua. He does not know anything about it. But because he is now the head of the NNPC, he should find out who the money was paid to in the first contract that was not done and let Nigerians know.
"If it is a militant leader that collected the money, Nigerians want to know. They want to know if he came to the NNPC to collect the money in cash, or a cheque was issued to him, which bank did he cash it and what for?"
Asking that the EFCC should take over the case, the source added that "The searchlight is not on the NNPC alone. They should ask the people that handled the matter at the Petroleum Products and Marketing Company (PPMC) questions and hand them over to the EFCC once the culprits are identified because this is clearly a scam.
"It is a company that did the job, not a militant group. There is no way a contract can be awarded to a militant group, that is very clear. Whoever collected the money did so in the name of a company, " he added.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. 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.
