A former Minister for Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, currently undergoing extensive cancer treatment in London has strongly refuted claims that she gave $24 billion oil swap deals without contract.
In a statement by her media adviser, Clem Aguiyi, the former minister rejected reports claiming 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.
Diezani has been summoned by the House of Representatives and she is expected to appear before the House Committee on March 3.
Recalling the events and putting the facts in proper perspective, the former Minister who spoke through 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 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, according to her, was given approval for a year term in January 2011, adding that two other approvals were consequently sought by the GMD, NNPC.
he first of these, according to the statement, was on the 29th August 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 31st Dec 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 the 28th of October 2014, following the recommendation of the then GMD, NNPC, the Minister approved OPAs for a new term of two years commencing from 1st January 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.
“NNPC had clearly requested for the approval of the Honorable Minister for “Renewal of the Crude Oil – Refined Products Exchange Agreement” and “Renewal of Offshore Processing Agreement” on all the various occasions outlined earlier.
“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.”
Aguiyi said that 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.
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Aguiyi said that the then GMD/NNPC, Austen Oniwon was right when he stated that the 445,000 barrels of crude oil were the property of NNPC, bought from the Federal Government of Nigeria at the prevailing rate, but said that as GMD, he did not need the Federal Executive Council Presidential Approval to enter into SWAP arrangements that will enable NNPC fulfill its statutory obligations.
“It was also correct that contrary to the picture being painted in the media, not more than 210,000 bpd out of the 445,000 bpd lifted by NNPC to ensure adequate supply and distribution of petroleum products were traded under the following SWAP arrangement:
CONTRACT COMPANY VOLUME (B/D)
Processing SIR 60,000
Exchange Trafigura 60,000
Exchange Duke Oil 90,000
TOTAL 210,000 b/d
The statement insisted that what the GMD required to execute the above was statutory approval from the minister for the companies !Refineries chosen by NNPC to participate in the SWAP arrangement as outlined in section 4 of the Petroleum Act and section 20 of the NNPCAct:
“It is however incorrect to say that the former minister gave ‘Approval for Extension’ unless “Extension” can legally be substituted for “Renewal” because what the Minister gave (and the records are there) was approval for ‘Renewal of Contract’. And these approvals were given based on letters of request received from the GMD of NNPC.
The former Minister also described as ‘Extremely Disturbing’ the report that Trafigura and SIR had lifted crude worth $24 billion before their respective contracts were signed in 2014 and that those contracts were back-dated to look like they were signed in 2011 when their initial contracts first expired.
“If indeed that was the case, then the Minister could not have been party to it, as the Minister is not involved in either the preparation or the Signing of NNPC Contracts. She reaffirmed that she had most certainly signed the second set of requisite Approvals requested by NNPC for Renewal of the contracts of both Messrs Trafigura Beheer BV and Messrs Societe Ivoirienne de Raffinage in August of 2011, for a two year term.
“The Minister had clearly fulfilled her statutory obligations by signing the Request for Approval for the renewals as and when presented to her,” the statement emphasised.
She noted that on the 29th August 2014, NNPC sought the approval of the Han Minister for a new short Contract ratification Term that would expire on 31st December 2014.
“It became apparent that NNPC had failed to request for ‘Ministerial Approval’ between late 2013 and August 2014 when the previous respective contracts had variously expired which meant that the various transactions had had no written ‘Contractual Cover’ for the periods varying from 7 months to 12 months as follows:
1. SIR: Contract Expired 3rd October 2013 and was Renewed 29th August 2014 (10 months without written Contract)
2. TRAFIGURA: Contract expired 30th September 2013 and was renewed
29th August 2014. (12 months without written Contract)
3. Duke Oil: Contract expired 30th January 2014 and was renewed 29th August
2014. (7 months without written Contract).
“It must be noted that the Corporation gave assurances to the Minister that it had assiduously upheld all its rights and performed its obligations as if a written contract existed during the periods mentioned, thereby ensuring the protection and safe guard of all national interests.”
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