The House of Representatives on Thursday mandated an ad hoc committee to investigate an alleged N59 trillion oil deal involving the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Others to appear before the committee include the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, Ltd., Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Ltd. and Septa Energy Ltd.
This resolution followed a motion by one of the representatives, Victor Ogene, (APGA-Anambra) which was unanimously adopted.
He said Ms. Alison-Madueke and SPDC compromised officials of the Ministry of Petroleum and NPDC in the transactions that led to the carving out of oil blocks.
He said that 15.7 trillion dollars worth of gas asset were alleged to be at stake in the deal. The legislator said that in perpetrating the deal, it was alleged that there was a deliberate exclusion of indigenous operators from exercising their rights of first refusal. He said that the exercise was carried out in violation of sections 3 ( 1), (2) and 5 of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Act N0 2 of 2010.
Mr. Ogene said that the Federal Government would have earned 800 million dollars instead of the 50 million dollars it got, if there had be an open and competitive bidding in line with the Procurement Act.
The House urged every stakeholder, authority or body to cooperate and assist the committee in its investigations.
The committee is expected to report back to the House within four weeks. Some oil producing communities in Delta on April 25, protested at the National Assembly over the alleged fraudulent allocation of Oil Mining Leases, OMLs, 4, 26, 30,34,38,41 and 42 by the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
Source: Premium Times