The Minister of State for
Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, on Wednesday presented to the Executive Council of the
Federation for approval the controversial $2.7 billion (about N827 billion) gas
pipeline contract he accused the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, of awarding two months
ago.
Mr. Kachikwu told State House
correspondents at the end of the meeting in Abuja that the Council approved a
memo for the award of the pipeline contract he earlier said was awarded by Mr.
Baru to a Chinese firm.
The contract is for the
installation of the new Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano, AKK, gas pipelines under a
public-private partnership basis.
Nigerians first heard about the
contract after a memo by Mr. Kachikwu dated August 30, 2017 to President
Muhammadu Buhari was leaked in the media.
In the memo, Mr. Kachikwu accused
Mr. Baru of insubordination and breaching contracting process in awarding the
contract.
He said Mr. Baru refused to
involve him, as the chairman designate of the NNPC Board and minister in charge
of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, in the processes of the award of the
contract.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Kachikwu
said he presented the contract to FEC for approval again to correct the
infringement of due process by the initial approval.
The controversy that followed the
revelation of friction between the two most powerful figures in the country’s
oil and gas industry raised tension that threatened the stability of the
Nigerian economy.
When the two officials later at
the Nigerian Economic Summit, NES 23 in Abuja made a show of reconciliation by
embracing before media cameras and pledging to work together for the overall
interest of the industry, Nigerians thought the issues had been resolved.
But Mr. Kachikwu’s decision on
Wednesday to present the same contract to FEC for approval triggered fresh
public curiosity.
He told correspondents that the
meeting, presided by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, approved his memo for the
award of the controversial contract.
When completed, he said, the
project would allow holistic movement of gas from the southern corridor to the
northern hinterlands for increased gas utilization and power generation.
“We presently have trapped power,
trapped gas, all in the southern corridors that is going nowhere because of
lack of infrastructure. So, that contract has now been awarded,” he told the
journalists.
“But, remember that was partially
done. This is a contract that has lasted over 13 years. So we got approval for
that today (Wednesday), and so that is going forward very nicely,” he said.
Asked why he had to present the
contract again to FEC for approval, Mr. Kachikwu said it was to
correct the irregularity he pointed out in his leaked memo to the President.
“What I wrote to the President in
my memo, which was presented to FEC, was to remind him that these were some of
the contracts he had already approved,” Mr. Kachikwu said.
“What I complained about was
about due process not being following in the initial approvals, obtained
without seeking my concurrence or input.
“The due process is that before
contracts go to FEC, they should go first to the Board of the company, in this
case NNPC, to give everyone the opportunity to make their inputs,’ he
explained.
He said before he took the latest
memo to FEC, he had followed due process, by taking the details back to the
Board, briefed members and obtained their buy-in.
“What I did was an inverse
approval process, which is post-the fact, by taking it to the Board before the
FEC. After the NNPC Tenders Board, the right thing to do should be for the
contracts to go to the minister, who should even have an input before the
Tenders Board finishes its work.
“But because the contract value
exceeds the $20 million threshold, the minister has the obligation to take it
back to the other Board members for them to review it. Whatever is their
opinion would be included in the recommendation by the minister to the
President, to guide his decision.
“Based on the President’s input
as the full Minister, then the contract would go to FEC. That is the due
process of how things should be done,” he said.
Mr. Kachikwu said at the point he
wrote to the president in October, approval had already been given, without his
involvement in the process and without the input of everyone who should
contribute to the process.
The minister, who said he was
reluctant to talk about the issue again, said he agreed to speak to afford Nigerians the full benefit of what happened.
“I don’t what to go through the
whole controversy again. It took a lot out of everybody. We managed to calm
things down. All what I did was to correct the wrong in the process inversely
by taking it to the Board members to enable them be aware of it and make their
inputs,” he said.
When contacted for his reaction,
NNPC spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, said he preferred not to comment on the issue,
since all parties in the controversy had since learnt their lessons and moved
on “to allow everyone focus on the bigger picture of ensuring a stable growth
of the oil and gas industry and the economy.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Kachikwu said
apart from the AKK pipeline contract, the FEC also awarded a contract to a
consortium “for the Odidi Pipeline Project from Warri and the Southern
marshlands, to move about 364 million cubic meters of additional gas to be
produced through the Niger Delta, to be fed into the AKK pipeline.
He said the contacts were all
part of the government’s gas gathering system.
“So the two contracts taken
together, basically will boost gas delivery in Nigeria, for power generation
and for the first time begin to take very definitive steps towards the movement
of Nigeria from being a crude oil nation into a gas environment,” he said.
Kachikwu is just a lie..all in a bid to smear the President's name...Buhari should sack him??
ReplyDelete