The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) did not award $25billion contracts, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has declared.
A statement issued on Sunday by the Vice President Senior Special Assistant (SSA), media and publicity, Laolu Akande, explained that “Claims on social and traditional media that $25b worth of oil contracts were awarded by the NNPC or that $25b in NNPC funds is missing are both false.
The statement titled ”It is Important to set the records straight”, said: “No contracts were procured by the NNPC based on the leaked memo of the Petroleum Resources Minister of State, even though such impressions have been maliciously created in the past few weeks”.
Explaining further, he said:“When I tweeted on Thursday morning last week, I had indicated that the Vice President, while acting as President approved Joint Venture Financing arrangements. But for some curious reasons, a few media reports used that tweet to report that I said the then Acting President approved N640 billion worth of oil contracts. Such reporting is both false and misleading and therefore ought to be completely ignored by all seekers of truth.
“What is more important is that when you look diligently at the referenced projects/transactions one by one, you will see, as NNPC has shown, that none of them was actually a procurement contract.”
“Take both the Crude Term Contract and the Direct Sale, Direct Purchase (DSDP) agreements, for instance; these are not procurement contracts involving the expenditure of public funds. Both transactions are simply a shortlisting process, in which prospective off-takers of crude oil and suppliers of petroleum are selected under agreed terms, and in accordance with due process.
“It is therefore wrong and misleading to refer to them as though they’re contracts involving the expenditure of NNPC funds, or public funds of any sort. As you now know, the Honorable Minister of Petroleum Resources himself has in fact clarified that he meant to focus on administrative and governance issues, not red-flag any fraud – because no fraud exists in this matter.”
Akande explained that it was not true and also inaccurate to attach $10b and $5b values on them.
“Attaching monetary values to these contracts is an arbitrary act that completely distorts understanding of the situation.” he said
