Ejiofor Alike
27 October 2008
Lagos — The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is at present seeking evidence from abroad in a bid to nail Nigerian officials alleged to have received bribes in order to help some foreign companies secure juicy oil and gas contracts in the country.
Top on the cases on which the anti-graft body is seeking clues is the $180 million bribe allegedly paid some government officials by Halliburton to secure Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contracts.
EFCC Spokesman Femi Babafemi confirmed to THISDAY last night that the anti-graft agency had commenced investigation into the matter but now needed clues from the alleged foreign collaborators in the illicit oil and gas deals to assist in tracking down their Nigerian counterparts
Babafemi, who would not give further details on the ground that it could jeopardise investigations into the matter, said it is only when the agency gets those clues that it can then pin down the suspected Nigerian collaborators.
'I know we are working on it. We are working on the Halliburton case; I know we are working on Wilbros and KBR. The NLNG case is the same with KBR and Halliburton and we are working on it. We are seeking information from outside the country and that is the much we can disclose for now, otherwise we jeopardise the investigation," he said.
The Halliburton bribe scandal has been rocking the country since the revelation emerged in 2003 that some Nigerian government officials had collected $180 million bribe to ensure that the company got the juicy LNG contracts.
TSKJ, a Portugal-registered company, owned jointly by Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), Technip SA of France, Eni's Snampro-getti Netherlands and Japan Gas Corporation (JGC) built Trains 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Nigeria LNG plants in Bonny Island.
THISDAY checks reveal that after the formation of the TKSJ consortium, it created LNG Services, a subsidiary based in the Portuguese Island of Madeira, a place where tax laws allegedly exempt businesses.
This consortium of engineering firms was awarded a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the construction of the first phase of the plant in December 1995.
However, TSKJ was alleged to have given bribes to some government officials to facilitate the contract.
The scandal came to the public domain after a French court launched an investigation in October 2003 to look into allegations that one of the firms, KBR, paid $180 million to Federal Government officials to win contracts for the construction of the first two trains of the NLNG plant in late 1990s.
This was followed by the probe of US oil service companies operating in Nigeria by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
THISDAY gathered that the aim of the probe was to determine whether the oil service companies violated the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing officials of the Federal Government.
Under the FCPA, it is an offence for US companies or their agents to pay bribes to win contracts abroad.
Halliburton allegedly admitted in a regulatory filing with SEC that improper payments to Nigerian government officials might have been made in order to win the LNG contract.
The company was also earlier alleged to have admitted that an internal probe suggested that members of the TSKJ consortium, which it leads, might have bribed government officials.
The company was said to have turned over the evidence to the DOJ, SEC and a French court.
But the Nigerian officials allegedly named in the scam were not prosecuted despite the assurance given in 2004 by the Federal Government that the matter had been handed over to the then newly-inaugurated EFCC.
When the French investigation began in 2003, Halliburton said it was innocent of the allegation since the alleged bribe occurred before its' acquisition of Kellog Brown & Root (KBR).
Halliburton was also said to have instructed its representatives in the country to submit the names of the Nigerians allegedly involved in the scam to government.
Following this revelation, the House of Representatives Commi-ttee on Public Petition that investigated the matter in August 2004 recommended that all companies linked with
TSKJ and Halliburton in Nigeria should be excluded from new contracts until its investigation was completed.
Analysts say it is worrisome that foreign companies doing business in Nigeria and their top executives are being convicted in Europe and America for giving bribes to Nigerians without any corresponding action by EFCC against such Nigerians.
A German court recently indicted Siemens and sentenced its top executives to various terms of imprisonment for bribing Nigerian officials to the tune of 1.3 billion Euros.
In the US, a top executive of Wilbros Incorporated was also found guilty of involvement in giving bribes to Federal Government officials to help the company win pipeline contracts in Nigeria.
Wilbros, a US independent oil and gas services provider, could not survive its bribery scandal, forcing the oil firm to exit the country and relocate to North America.
Swiss oil services and logistics group, Panalpina, said last week that it had made a smooth withdrawal from Nigeria following a bribery probe.
Baker Hughes Incorporated, Vetco International Limited, GlobalSantaFe Corporation, Transocean Incorporated, Tidewater Incorporated, Noble Corporation, Global Industries Ltd, Nabors Industries Incorporated and Pride International Inc had all received requests for information from DOJ over alleged bribery in Nigeria, with some of them pleading guilty to the charges.
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