The war of integrity between the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel
Ibe Kachikwu, and the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, Group Managing
Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, got more intense
on Wedensday, The Nation is reporting. The oil giant faulted the Minister’s claim
that he was not consulted on $10 billion Crude
Term Contracts. The NNPC said Kachikwu made an input into
the shortlisting of 40 off-takers for the Crude
Term Contracts by recommending seven
companies, which were engaged. Also, the minister was said to have
nominated two companies for the alleged
Direct Sales, Direct Purchase transactions,
which Kachikwu claimed were worth $5
billion. The corporation said while the Minister was
its GMD, he sent a memo to the Bureau of
Public Procurement seeking clarification on
the status of the NNPC Tenders Board. The NNPC’s position is contained in a fact-
sheet apparently prepared against the
backdrop of the six posers raised by loyalists
of Kachikwu for GMD Baru. The Nation published the posers exclusively
on Tuesday. Besides the posers, the minister had in an
August 30 memo to President Muhammadu
Buhari alleged that he was being sidelined by
the GMD. He said: “As in many cases of things that
happen in NNPC these days, I learn of
transactions only through publications in the
media. The question is, why is it that other
parastatals which I supervise as Minister of
State or Chair of their Boards are able to go through these contractual and mandatory
governance processes and yet NNPC is
exempt from these?” Sources, who spoke with our correspondent,
with a fact-sheet said the “posers amounted
to mere academic exercise and sheer deceit
by the minister”. They claimed that the minister was consulted
on most of the transactions he listed in his
memo to the President, including Crude Oil
Term transactions, Direct Sales, Direct
Purchase contracts and Ajaokuta-Kaduna-
Kano and approved the off-takers of Nigerian Crude Oil and gas for 2016/ 2017. One of the sources said: “There were no
issues then. “As for the off-takers for 2017/2018, the
minister was consulted by the GMD. Out of a
list of 40 off-takers, Kachikwu recommended
seven firms, which were accepted by NNPC
management without any issue. He initially
nominated three and later added four. His judgment was respected, accepted and
approved by NNPC management alongside 33
others.

“The seven off-takers he recommended are
as follows: North-West Petroleum; Setana
Energy; Emo Oil; Litasco Supply and Trading
Company; Voyage Oil and Gas; Levene
International and Cespa Trading. Since the
Minister strongly recommended all these companies, we concurred with his
recommendation which was based on a
professional judgment. We also did not find
any of the companies wanting and they met
the criteria for crude lifting. “On DSDP, the Minister also nominated two
companies, Messrs Falcon Bay Energy Limited
and Rain Oil Limited. The NNPC avoided all
these details in its statement on Monday in
order to protect the interest of these
companies doing legitimate business. But Nigerians can appreciate that Kachikwu’s
input was sought. “Regarding AKK Pipeline contract, NNPC has
explained that it is still in the works; it has
not been awarded by the Federal Executive
Council. “There was this $9.2billion Escravos Gas
Pipeline Project which the GMD did not touch
in his memo to the President. Apart from
discussing and reviewing it with the Board of
NNPC, the GMD wrote a June 29, 2017 memo
to the Presidency and after official process and consultations with the Minister, it was
approved. In fact, the Minister gave the final
approval in a memo of August 22, 2017,
although with some reservations. “Concerning sections 130(2) and 148(1) of
the 1999 Constitution, the Minister only
alluded to the powers of the President. The
NNPC GMD made it clear that he obtained the
approval of the President on these
transactions. If the President, as the senior Minister of Petroleum Resources, has
exercised his constitutional powers, what
else is the Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources after? “It should be noted that NNPC and its GMD
are only following the standards put in place
by the Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources on Crude Oil Term Contracts and
other transactions. NNPC is following the
same rules which the Minister put in place. But the Minister is now criticising the same
rules. The only thing that has changed is that
Kachikwu is not the substantive GMD of NNPC
again. “Nigerians need to know that the Minister
(while he was the GMD of NNPC) wrote a
memo to the Bureau of Public Procurement
(BPP) to seek clarifications on the financial
limit of NNPC Tenders Board. And the BPP put
the limit at $20million. This is what the NNPC management has been adhering to.” When contacted, a top source in the Ministry
of Petroleum Resources, who is in the
position to know, said NNPC was lying. The source said: “All of the above are lies.
No official documentation backing this. This
and possibly more to come are vain efforts
to discredit Kachikwu and cover up the
damning allegations he made.”