Nigerians will know the truth soon – Diezani.

  
The erstwhile Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has refuted claims alleged by the former Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Austin Oniwon, that she unilaterally extended crude oil swap contracts valued at $24 billion for refined products.
Alison-Madueke in a statement issued in Abuja through her spokesman, Clem Aguiyi, rejected the claims insisting that the probe in the House of Representatives claiming she granted an “extension”, instead of approval for the renewal of the contracts was a fabricated tissue of lies deviously concocted to sustain the escalating evil narrative against her person.
It could be recalled that on Tuesday, February 16, one of the Ex-GMD, of NNPC had accused Diezani of singlehandedly extending crude oil for refined products (oil swap) contracts worth $24 billion without following due channels.
In reaction, the House Representatives Committee on Crude Oil Swap on Monday, February 22, had in a letter signed by its Chairman, Zakari Mohammed, mandated the former minister to appear before it on Wednesday, March 2, to explain her role in the product swap arrangements with oil marketing companies.
Deizani while reacting to the allegations, disclosed that what she did was, “approvals for renewal of contract for first, a one-year term each for 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”.
She said, NNPC subsidiary, Duke Oil, was given approval for a one-year term in January 2011, while two other approvals were consequently sought by the group managing director of NNPC. The first of these on the 29th August, 2014 was seeking to ratify all three aforementioned approvals which had apparently variously expired during the course of 2013.
Part of the statement reads: “In view of the criticality of the situation, the former minister immediately approved/ratified all three renewals. Expiration of those terms were put at 31st December, 2014, following assurances to the former minister that the contractual obligations of the parties to NNPC had in fact been fully met, despite the regrettable lapse in renewal time.
“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 OPAs over the SWAPs and put forward the case for migration from the OPAs and crude exchange (swap) contracts to OPAs fully.
“NNPC posited that, the ‘experienced benefits of the OPAs to the federation’ would be much greater. All approvals were due process-driven and were only given by the former minister following formal statutory written requests, which contained the technical basis for the renewal and were sent to her by the GMD, NNPC, as is the normal practice.
“NNPC had clearly requested for the approval of the former minister for renewal of the crude oil for refined products exchange agreement and renewal of the offshore processing agreements on all the various occasions outlined earlier in this press release.
“Whereas, it was the former 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,” the statement noted.
Her spokesman added 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.”
It is incorrect to say that the former minister gave “approval for extensions”, unless “extension” could legally be substituted for “renewal”, because what Alison-Madueke gave (and the records are there) was approval for “renewal of contracts”.
“And these approvals were given based on the letters of request received from the GMD of NNPC.