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Tag: NNPC

  • Amaechi raises the alarm over ‘missing $5billion Excess Crude fund’

    Amaechi raises the alarm over ‘missing $5billion Excess Crude fund’

    • Governors Forum demands transparency in NNPC finances

    •Jonathan shuns meeting with state chief executives

    • Okonjo-Iweala accused of stopping $200m ADB loan for Rivers

    Who and what could have made $5billion disappear from the nation’s Excess Crude Account (ECA)?

    This was the challenge the Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Rotimi Amaechi, threw at the anti-graft agencies yesterday in Sokoto.

    He spoke while declaring the second annual retreat of the state chief executives open.

    The River State governor said the Excess Crude Account stood at $9billion last January only to shrink to only $4billion today.

    “That account belongs to Federal, States and Local Governments. Today it is $4billion. We don’t know who took $5billion,” he said.

    President Goodluck Jonathan, who was billed to deliver the key note address at the retreat, was absent.

    He did not send any representative.

    Also absent were members of the Jang -led faction of the forum, which enjoys the backing of the Presidency.

    Amaechi said it was convenient for the anti-graft agencies to look the other way now on the matter because of the apparent involvement of the Federal Government whereas the same agencies, according to him, would have waded in if any of the state or local governments were involved in a similar financial irregularity.

    He said the agencies are being used for political vendetta against opponents of the federal authorities.

    His words: “Today the EFCC is either in Jigawa or in Kano because they disagree with the President. What about NNPC? What about the Ministry of Niger Delta and the Ministry of Works?

    “The whole governors put together we receive 26 per cent from the revenue of the Federation. The Federal Government gets 52 per cent. And with that 52 per cent, nobody goes after the Federal Government to say ‘how did you spend it’?

    “And then you go after those who got 26 per cent. Even if you recover all the 26 per cent, what have you benefitted from it as against those who have stolen 52 per cent?”

    He asked the followership to begin to demand accountability from the leadership otherwise entrenching democracy in the country would remain a mirage.

    Lamenting the lack of effective leadership in the country, he said: “”The only thing that fascinates me is the definition of legacy projects. Because if I were to be the President, I would want to leave a legacy of free and fair elections.

    “But nobody in government or outside government sees that as a legacy. Those are the intangibles that can make for good governance. Nobody believes that governance is not the structures that have broken down.

    “Nobody knows that Nigeria is as chaotic as it is because there are no organizations; we have no rules. What I mean is not laws by the National Assembly – the standard by which you measure the expectation of the people you govern.

    “There is a friend of mine who went to see the Inspector General of Police and then he got there and saw a DIG and then the DIG said ‘you are also here, are you not Governor Amaechi’s friend who is against our government?’

    “This means from day one, the police is on the other side. And the police is the Nigeria police. It is not PDP police.”

    He also spoke on his ordeals in the hands of the Federal Government arising from his disagreement with the Presidency.

    He accused the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala of refusing to approve a $200million loan meant to provide water for the people of Rivers State because of his disagreement with the President.

    He said that other agents/agencies of the Federal Government have stalled development in his state for the same reason.

    The governor said: “The African Development Bank (ADB) met with the Rivers State Government. We agreed on the loan and they signed off every document. All the requirements have been met to give us $200million as loan for water in River State.

    “We travelled and concluded every arrangement but the Minister of Finance, who by international standard is recognised in the world, has refused to sign off for us to provide water for Rivers people.

    “Meanwhile, I ,the Governor, I drink bottled water paid for by Rivers people and then she has refused to sign off for the money to be released so that we can give our people water because Governor Amaechi is against the President.

    “So it is like two women quarrelling and keeping malice with you. So they are keeping malice with me now and my people should die because I disagreed with the President.”

    Amaechi said Nigeria is facing lot of challenges, which can only be addressed if the leaders make conscious efforts to do the right thing.

    The Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto, Dr Matthew Kukah, in his presentation entitled: “Good governance and the imperative for managing and leaving a sustainable legacy” charged the governors to leave legacies for which they will be remembered by the people.

    He decried a situation where governors receive awards from everywhere without concrete development in their states.

    On the role of education in good governance, the clergyman said the nation cannot move forward without ensuring that every child is given quality education.

    Kuka said: “It is impossible for us to move in any direction at all without seriously, honestly and sincerely committing ourselves to the fact that we have a commitment that no single child in Nigeria be left behind in terms of education.

    “I’m hearing from the Ministry of Education, all kinds of agencies, the Universal Basic Education that there are hundreds of billions of Naira locked up.

    “States cannot access the money simply because they have not been able to come up with counterpart funding.

    “The truth is that we have not made up our mind about education because I don’t know whether we are not running contrary by having a school where the children attending the Almajiri schools are already stigmatised.

    “How many really serious members of the Nigerian elite will send their children to these schools? And am I going to graduate one day with a PhD from Almajiri school and I want to be a professor in this country?

    Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who spoke on the “Role of states in deepening democracy and good governance in Nigeria” lamented that the military terminated the country’s parliamentary system of government that was suitable for Nigeria and replaced it with the presidential system which in essence is a unitary system of government.

    Tambuwal faulted the unwieldy powers vested on the Federal Government by the Constitution which “has also made it possible for the Federal Government to control the police making it almost impossible for states to have a significant role to play in crime prevention and law enforcement.

    “When you see the way things are going in Nigeria, you come to the conclusion that it is not possible for us to practise presidential system of government the way it is done in the United States from where we copied our federation.

    “Another manifestation of the unitary system is the concentration of resource allocation on the federal government leaving states as if they were beggars.”

    He added that the State Assemblies have failed the people by not being able to exercise due oversight on the state executives.

    In a communiqué at the end of the retreat, the NGF insisted on transparency in the operations of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and urged Nigerians to stop being docile in the face of monumental impunity in the country.

    The governors stressed the need for “intangible aspects of good governance anchored on a framework of ethics, values and political morality to drive development and leave a durable legacy of democratic governance.”

  • Reps to investigate NNPC, Swiss firm over $6.8b fraud

    Reps to investigate NNPC, Swiss firm over $6.8b fraud

    The House of Representatives’ Committees on Petroleum Upstream and Downstream), and Justice are to investigate the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for allegedly conniving with a Swiss trading firm to swindle the country of $6.8billion.

    The committees would question the corporation for selling the country’s crude oil below the market value through what is termed “Letter Box Companies.”

    The decision of the lawmakers followed the prayers and the adoption of a motion by Abiodun Abudu-Balogun (APC, Ogun), that the fraud was reported by a Swiss Non-Governmental advocacy organisation, the Berne Declaration.

    He said the report by the organisation declared the deal as the “greatest fraud Africa has ever known” that is draining Nigeria of billions of dollars in revenue.

    He said: “The report by Berne Declaration, tiled: ‘Swiss Traders Opaque Deals in Nigeria,’ is so disturbing with details of the schemes employed by the NNPC and foreign oil companies to dupe the country of over $6.8billion

    “A major partner of NNPC, Vitol and Transfigura Commodity Trading Firms was mentioned in the deals where large volume of our crude oil was sold below the market price, “ he said, stressing that it should be a source of concern that exclusive and untransparent partnerships of Vitol and Transfigura Commodity Trading Firms with the NNPC, gave them over 36 per cent of the market share, “with NNPC selling its crude at a discount.”

    Balogun sought justification behind Nigeria being the only major oil producing nation that sells 100 per cent of its crude to private traders, rather than market it herself and benefit from the resulting added value with the greatest number of beneficiaries of export allocations.

    He said another cause for worry is the sharp practices and deals in the NNPC crude oil allocations to local refineries that are not utilised, but sold fraudulently at knock- down prices to Geneva-based companies through Letter box companies by swap arrangement.

    “What should also bother Nigerians is the numerous damaging allegations contained in the report against the NNPC and its subsidiaries accused of not publishing detailed financial reports since 2005,” he added..

    The presiding  officer, Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha referred the motion to the three House committees after it was unanimously supported when put to voice vote.

    The committees are expected to put in their report in four weeks.

  • Ghost subsidy

    Ghost subsidy

    •Kerosene subsidy scam may be Nigeria’s next scandal

    Just as it was with the much-talked-about petrol subsidy last year, we may yet be on the way to unearthing another scam, this time, on kerosene subsidy. The Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum, Downstream, Dakuku Peterside, said that the Federal Government spent about N634billion to subsidise kerosene in the last three years. Peterside spoke at a seminar organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), in Lagos. According to him, about N110 billion was spent on kerosene subsidy in 2010; N324 billion in 2011 and N200 billion in 2012.

    This, no doubt, must have come as a rude shock to Nigerians because, as Peterside himself noted, the subsidy has never benefitted Nigerians who have been suffering due to the fact that they cannot get the product at the regulated price. Kerosene is supposed to sell for N40.90k per litre, but it is presently going for between N110 and N150. Senator Bukola Saraki who had expected the Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to shed more light on the subsidy at her meeting with the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and Appropriation on the 2013 Budget last Monday was disappointed because the minister was evasive on the issue.

    The minister, rather, insisted that the N1.4trillion she told the joint committee about was the amount paid to oil marketers as subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol. When Senator Saraki persisted, she simply retorted, “the payment is for petrol; it does not include kerosene. I said the payment is for PMS and that is petrol, adding: “I am really very clear that the payment is for petrol. I think the NNPC should answer the question on whether subsidy is paid on kerosene.”

    We do not want to believe that Dr Okonjo-Iweala does not know whether we are paying subsidy on kerosene or not; although we agree she might not know the exact amount involved immediately. In which case all she needed to do was ask for more time to find out details and get back to the committee.

    We would not be surprised if another can of worms is opened by the time the lawmakers probe the matter further. Those involved in the kerosene subsidy racket might have been taking undue advantage of the fact that we hardly talk about it. With the ball now put in the court of the untouchable behemoth, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the matter seems to have got to a dead end. As at now, the corporation is the sole importer of kerosene and we do not know anything that it has done well. It is under its watch that the country, the world’s sixth biggest crude exporter, imports the bulk of its petroleum products because the corporation cannot efficiently run our refineries.

    It is sad that the government spends about a third of what we spend on capital budget yearly on kerosene subsidy, which, like petrol subsidy, is subsidising corruption because the subsidy is not getting to the intended beneficiaries. It is true that Nigerians could switch over to Liquefied Petroleum gas (LPG) instead of kerosene as Mr Peterside suggested, but how many of our low and middle income earners can afford this? Cost apart, many people, particularly in the rural areas, do not feel comfortable with gas cookers. They will rather switch over to firewood if kerosene is no longer within their reach. This, as we know, has deleterious effects on the environment.

    We agree with Mr Peterside that “… something is wrong somewhere. How can we be spending on what does not benefit the masses”? It is that something that the lawmakers should unearth since the government has persistently shown a gross incompetence when it comes to tackling corruption.

     

  • What shall we do with this oil ministry?

    Call it the house of sleaze and you will not be mistaken. Call it the Hammer House of Horrific Corruption and it fits even more perfectly. Such is the state of Nigeria’s petroleum industry as represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). In the over three decades of its existence, corruption has become so much its second nature that it probably does not know the difference anymore. And being the honey pot of the nation is always in cahoots with any government in power that it has also become the sluiceway of official graft at the highest levels. NNPC plus Federal Government equals an evil template, an ominous Siamese twin that is medically inseparable.

    The Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and all the other little horrors down the line have become a long chain of legitimised fraud; it is a carefully developed and nurtured subculture of criminality that the nation seems to have come to accept and live with. In all the frequent exposures by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) reports, National Assembly reports and international expose, it is never heard that anyone gets sanctioned or prosecuted. Worse still, this thriving cult has extirpated efficiency and vanquished any iota of corporate governance and work ethics.

    The result of this is that NNPC has shrunken from being the biggest national oil corporation in Africa to a worthless, ossified stealing field with no meaningful development going on in its hollow labyrinth in the last two decades. On the other hand, almost all its infrastructure are in their end stage, dysfunctional and derelict. For instance, all its four refineries are near comatose; its pipelines laid many decades ago are in dire need of replacement and repair; its storage facilities are 20 years behind time and the hollow, shambling giant is ravage by insider-induced scavenging and oil theft. It is a dire situation that has reached its nadir in the last two years of the current minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke. If there was a modicum of commonsense before her time, what we have now under Alison-Madueke is akin to a free-for-all. She seems so utterly bereft of any ideas and all systems seem to have gone loose: if it is not unmanageable revenue losses, it is turnaround maintenance scam at the refineries; if it is not blatant oil theft, it is subsidy fraud, oil bloc gerrymandering, shady oil-for-loan deals, on and on.

    Hardball has been triggered into this long sad treatise by the untrammeled mess that what used to be Nigeria’s oil glory has become. The local media have shouted themselves hoarse but it has been like water thrown on pumpkins. The story today is another sad report from abroad; a Swiss-based non-governmental advocacy group, Berne Declaration, in its current report, accused the NNPC of conniving with some foreign oil trading companies based in Europe to defraud Nigeria of subsidy payments amounting to about $6.8 billion. The bottom-line of the report is that the “The all-powerful national oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, categorised as the most opaque national oil company on the planet, itself, is evidence of Nigeria’s ‘resource curse’ at work.”

    The report states that two Swiss ‘letter-box’ companies by the names, Vitol and Trafigura had exclusive and un-transparent partnerships with the NNPC, which had given them over 26 per cent of the market share. “Vitol and Trafigura alone took respectively 13.44 per cent and 13.49 per cent of Nigeria’s crude oil exports in 2011 for a cumulative value of $6.8 billion.” It further states that more than 56 per cent of the oil output up for sale by the NNPC in 2011 valued at $14 billion was sold to Swiss companies or Nigerian companies with ‘letterbox’ subsidiaries in Switzerland. It notes that Nigeria is the only major oil producing company that sells 100 per cent of its crude to private traders rather than market it itself in the open market and benefit from the resulting market value.

    Who will save Nigeria from this mess?

  • Sure fraud?

    Sure fraud?

    •Where is N500bn SURE-P funds? That is the question

    WE cannot fathom why stakeholders in the fuel subsidy conundrum have found it difficult to account for the N32 subsidy removed on each litre of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) sold from January 2012 to September 2013. The money is meant for use of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). Unfortunately, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources have treated the summons by Senate’s ad hoc committee on SURE-P with contempt. The committee wanted them to give account of how the accrued fund was disbursed and managed.

    The amount being sought is huge, something reportedly in the range of about N500billion public funds based on N32 removed on each of the 25 billion litres of fuel sold in 21 months. Senator Kabiru Marafa, a member of the committee confirmed in a report that the amount was contained in a response dated October 9, 2013, to the committee’s correspondence which was signed by Salmanu Faskari, Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ Director of Finance and Accounts.

    Marafa puts it thus: “The committee had earlier written the NNPC to ascertain the quantity of fuel sold from when the subsidy programme started till date. NNPC gave us the quantity sold from January 2012 and September 2013, covering 21 months…The SURE-P team led by Christopher Kolade said they were receiving N15bn flat rate every month. If you multiply 21 months by N15bn, it will be about N350bn. What we are even asking is what happened to the over N500bn difference. That is what we ask the NNPC…and the CBN as the custodian of the fund to come and tell us.’’

    The committee is not asking for too much. If by January 2012, the country, according to the ministry’s position, consumed about 1.3 billion litres which had dropped to 941million litres by February 2013 and further dipped to 770, 695, 645 in September 2013; Nigerians have a right to know why subsequent remittances remain constant. It is our view that these should have dropped, too. The difference should be accounted for by the relevant authorities saddled with managing the SURE-P funds.

    The apparent lack of transparency in how SURE-P funds are deployed is condemnable. Any fund duly appropriated by the National Assembly should be properly managed and accounted for. It is sad that Diezani Alison-Madueke, petroleum minister, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, CBN governor and Andrew Yakubu, NNPC’s group managing director consider themselves to be above Nigerians whose representatives invited them to personally appear before the Senate committee to shed more light on this important issue. The law in the country is no respecter of people in high office.

    We note the NNPC’s denial of involvement in the matter; but it does not amount to much. Its management should have appeared before the committee to say whatever it had to say instead of issuing press release to say it knew nothing about how the funds are disbursed.

    The rigmarole over SURE-P funds is expected in view of the untidy and hasty manner of its creation. The programme, we have always said, is undesirable because it was not created with the best of intentions by the Federal Government. No meaningful achievement can so far be pointed to as having been attained by the programme. What it professes to be doing is what other existing agencies were already doing. So, it is nothing but a mere duplication of duties and sheer waste of public funds. The initiative is, ab initio, a failure and it would continue to suffer from perception problems for as long as it exists and the current shady manner of its administration continues.

     

  • Budget Office: N500b not missing from SURE-P

    Budget Office: N500b not missing from SURE-P

    THE Budget Office of the Federation has said N500 billion is not missing from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) account as alleged by the Senate.

    An official of the Budget Office said the office don’t have up to 50 per cent of the amount in its books.

    The source accused the Senate of distracting the Office from preparing the 2014 budget prior to the President’s submission to the National Assembly on Tuesday.

    The Budget Office refused to be drawn into any debate over the whereabouts of the money until they have concluded work on the nnext year’s budget.

    The officials of the Budget Office, the agency which serves as the accounting hub for SURE-P, said they would not speak on the matter citing civil service rules.

    They said the office works with whatever the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) remits to it and that any claims of missing funds should be directed to the oil giant.

    They also asked if the N800 billion allegedly funnelled to SURE-P was for the three tiers of government or the Federal Government alone.

    The SURE-P was set up by President Goodluck Jonathan, as an interventionist committee to manage the proceeds from fuel subsidy removal.

    It is funded with the difference or the savings which would have been used to subsidise imported premium motor spirit (PMS) had there been full subsidy for the product. By implication, the difference between N65 per litre cost of PMS as full subsidy and N97 the price of PMS from partial withdrawal of subsidy, is what the government uses to fund SURE-P. The money saved is shared among the three tiers of government.

    However, SURE-P in carrying out the mandate of reinvesting the Federal Government’s share, established a fund management structure. In the structure, the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation (DG Budget Office) is designated as the accounting officer for SURE-P.

    The account of the programme is, therefore, domiciled in the Office of the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation.

    After the committee has approved payments for projects, the chairman signs, then the DG Budget Office, as the accounting officer, processes the approvals, after which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) makes payments to beneficiaries.

    On the annual budget, it has been revealed that some measure of politicking influences budget implementation in some states. Another source at the Budget Office, admitted that more capital projects included the budget are executed in states controlled by the ruling party than in those controlled by the opposition.

    He said only a fraction of the capital projects in the budget for states controlled by the opposition party are executed by the Federal Government, noting that in some cases, funds for the projects in opposition held states are diverted to projects in states controlled by the ruling party.

    This development may not be unconnected with the persistent poor performance of the budget, which has been a source of friction between the executive and the legislature. This admittance from the corridors of the executive arm of government raises questions about budget implementation.

  • Flood: Communities receive free malaria treatment in Edo

    Communities affected by flood in Agenebode, Etsako East Local Government Council of Edo State, received free malaria treatment and mosquito-treated nets yesterday.

    The drugs and mosquito treated nets were donated to the communities by the Agbami Partners which comprised Chevron Nig. Ltd, Star Deep Water Petroluem Limited, Famfa Oil Limited, NNPC,Statoil and Petroleo Brasileiro Nigerai Ltd. It would be recalled that over 20 communities in Edo State were affected by the flood disaster which occurred last year.

    Speaking at the occasion, the Director, Star Deepwater Petroleum, Mr Jeffrey Ewing, said they are implementing the Roll Back Malaria in the affected communities in order to add value to the lives of the people and contribute positively to the socio-economic development of Nigeria.

    According to him, “today’s event is another indication of the partner’s determined efforts to improve primary health care delivery in Nigeria.

    ” Malaria is a major killer disease severely affecting mostly children

    under five years of age and pregnant women.

    ” But besides malaria, the Agbani partners have also implemented awareness programme on HIV and AIDS, diabetes and other diseases in several communities across the six geo political zones in the country”.

    Chairman of Etsako East Local Government Council, Prince Suleiman Afegbua, who declared the programme open, expressed joy over the gesture and urged the beneficiaries to make good use of the mosquito-treated nets.

    The Okumagbe of Weppawano, who was represented by Chief Oshomah Akenabor, commended the Agbami partners for coming to the aid of the flood affected communities, assuring that “our people make good use of the mosquito treated nets and also adhere strictly to the prescription of the malaria drugs distributed to us.”

     

  • Mega petrol station owners battle NNPC over losses

    Mega petrol station owners battle NNPC over losses

    The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) branded affiliate petrol stations owners have cried out that they have been operating at a loss following their partnership with the corporation.

    They also lamented that despite their several requests that the NNPC Retail Limited, the unit in charge of the transaction for an upward increase of their profit margins to at least N4.50, the management of the Corporation a long time before consideration is yet to acede to the request.

    Speaking in Abuja at the official inauguration of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of the association, the National President, Chief Andrew Achiga regretted that it had been so difficult to get the NNPC Retail management to discuss for final approval of the margin increase over time, stating that “we have been operating at a loss since the partnership started.”

    Speaking after been sworn in, the FCT chairman of the association, Elder Ubolo Itodo Okpanachi stated that they are in the partnership with the NNPC Retail Limited with the objective of serving the Nigerian people most effectively.

    “We appeal to the national officers to always dialogue with the NNPC in a way that our primary motive of been in the business is preserved at all times.”

    He however, sought for cooperation from the NNPC Retail to ensure that petroleum products are brought to the door steps of the people at no extra cost.

  • Civil Defence nabs 25 pipeline vandals, bunkerers

    Civil Defence nabs 25 pipeline vandals, bunkerers

    No fewer than 25 persons have been arrested by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC) in Oyo State for alleged bunkering and vandalism of oil facilities from January, this year till date.

    The state Commandant, Mr Shem Obafaiye, who made this known to reporters in Ibadan, the state capital, said the command also impounded four trucks, three tankers with stolen oil products and condensate fuel, six other vehicles, seven motorcycles and 774 kegs of fuel.

    Reviewing the activities of the Corps in the state in the last 10 months, Shem who spoke through NSCDC spokesperson in the state, Olusegun Oluwole, at its Iyanganku headquarters, said the rate at which criminals vandalise oil facilities was disturbing.

    He said the suspects were arrested at Elebu in Ibadan South West Local Government, Odo-Oba in Ogbomosho, Ibodo-Jesu in Ogo-Oluwa Local Government Area and Surulere Local Government Area.

    “These vandals play a hide-and-seek game but our intelligence gathering always exposed them despite that they operate at night. We also conduct our surveillance 24 hours daily, before we lay siege for them.

    “In all the areas where the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) pipelines pass through, our men conduct stop-and-search of vehicles and this has been helping the Corps to nab the vandals and the nefarious act is reducing in Oyo State,” the NSCDC boss said

    He noted that the security outfit operates in eight council areas in the state —Oluyole, Ibadan South West, Ido, Afijio, Oyo East, Surulere, Ogo Oluwa and Ogbomoso South

    Obafaiye noted that the Command, through intelligence gathering, has discovered that 10 barons are behind the pipeline vandalism in Oyo State, adding: “We have arrested and paraded six of the barons while the other four are still at large. “They are the ones sponsoring the pipeline vandals, by God’s grace we will arrest and parade them soon, it is just a question of time. The Federal Government has not made a mistake in giving that specific assignment to us and I am sure we will get there.”

    He said the Command has 15 pending cases in courts across the state against the economic saboteurs.

    Parading one of the suspects, Okunola Akinwale, Obafaiye said the 35-year-old man was arrested on October 9, this year at Odo-Oba area of Ogbomosho in Ogbomoso South Local Area by the NSCDC officials in collaboration with the Operation Burst Team.

    Before he was arrested, Akinwale, with others now at large, succeeded in loading 22,000 litres of fuel into the 33,000 litres tanker taken to the spot where the pipeline was burst. The tanker had a Lagos number plate XB 190 SMK.

    According to Obafaiye, the fuel tanker would be taken to the NNPC depot at Spats for offloading, while Akinwale would be prosecuted.

    He assured that the command would stop at nothing to flush-out criminals.

    Akinwale told The Nation, said he had never been involved in such illegal act before, adding that he was in his house at Gbagi area of Ibadan when a man  simply identified as Kazeem told him that he was going to load fuel and that he should follow him since he had  promised to help him secure a job, having lost his driving job about six month ago.

    “We only met twice and I do not know him much. He came to me and told me that he was going to load fuel in Ilorin and that I should follow him. When we got to Ogbomosho, inside a bush there we saw other people that had already fixed (burst) the pipe and were pumping the fuel. I had to stay at one corner and watch them until I was arrested, but they all escaped,” Akinwale explained

    The suspect, who claimed to be an indigene of Iresi in Osun State, said he was not aware of the nature of the job Kazeem was introducing to him.

    He went on: “For the past six month, my wife had been taking care of my three children, that is why I explained the situation of things to Kazeem. I did not know he would land me in trouble.”

  • Chevron wins e-payment award

    Chevron wins e-payment award

    Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), operator of the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture, has won the 2013 Electronic Payment Excellence Award of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    According to the CBN, the company won the award, in the multinational category, for its “commitment to the Federal Government’s transformation initiative on end-to-end electronic payment of all forms of salaries, pensions, suppliers and taxes.”

    The General Manager, Policy, Government & Public Affairs, Chevron, Deji Haastrup said Governor of CBN Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, jointly presented the award at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

    The CBN governor noted the company’s alignment with and promotion of a national initiative (electronic payment), which has caused CNL to be “singled out as a model worthy of emulation within your industry category and the country at large.”

    CNL General Manager, Finance, Jerry Uwakwe, thanked the CBN for recognizsing CNLs commitment to electronic payment saying it is in keeping with the company’s value of partnership and ingenuity through technological innovation.