The former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, currently undergoing cancer treatment in London, has refuted claims that she gave $24 billion oil swap deals without contract.
In a release issued to journalists in Abuja, Mrs Alison-Madueke rejected some newspaper and online reports which claimed that she granted an “extension” instead of approval for the renewal of contracts for the swap arrangements.
She described the latest attack on her person as fabricated tissues of lies deviously concocted to sustain the escalating evil narratives against her person.
Recalling the events and putting the facts in proper perspective, the former minister, who spoke through her spokesman, Mr Clem Aguiyi, insisted that what she gave were “approvals for renewal of contract for firstly, a one-year term each for both Messrs Trafigura Beheer BV and Messrs Society Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR) in August 2010 and then for a two-year term in August 2011 for the same companies.
“The NNPC subsidiary, Duke Oil, was given approval for a one-year term in January 2011. Two other approvals were consequently sought by the GMD, NNPC, the first of these on August 29, 2014 seeking to ratify all three aforementioned approvals which had apparently variously expired during the course of 2013.
“In view of the criticality of the situation, the minister immediately approved/ratified all three renewals. Expiry of those terms were put at December 31, 2014, following assurances to the minister that the contractual obligations of the parties to NNPC had, in fact, been fully met, despite the regrettable lapse in renewal time.
“The minister noted the said lapses in expiration to renewal dates to be seven months for Duke Oil, 10 months for SIR and 12 months for Trafigura.
“Secondly, on October 28, 2014, following the recommendation of the then GMD, NNPC, the minister approved OPAs for a new term of two years commencing from January 1, 2015.
“The entities recommended by NNPC were Sahara Energy Resources Ltd, Aiteo Energy and Duke Oil. NNPC strongly recommended and outlined the benefits of the OPA over the SWAPs and put forward the case for migration from the OPA and crude exchange (SWAP) Contracts to OPAs fully.
“NNPC posited that the ‘experienced benefits of the OPA to the Federation’, would be much greater. All approvals were due process driven and were only given by the minister following formal statutory written requests, which contained the technical basis for the renewal and were sent to the Minister by the GMD-NNPC, as is the normal practice. “Whereas it is the minister’s responsibility to either give or refuse ‘approval’, it was not within her purview as minister to draft, initiate or conclude the processes of signing the final contracts as it is the statutory responsibility of NNPC to ensure that all technical areas are duly covered and all requisite due process parameters are duly implemented.”
According to her spokesman, “there would have been little need to respond to this particular issue at this time, considering that the former minister is still indisposed and would have wished to be left alone to recuperate. She will speak for herself in due time. It is nevertheless imperative that records are set straight so that Nigerians and posterity will know the truth.” (Nigerian Tribune)