Nigeria lost N28.73 Billion in Oil Cut Prices- Ribadu Panel Digs Up Large-Scale Oil Fraud
Channels Tv
October 25, 2012
A team headed by the former Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, produced the 146-page study based on the Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ request. It covers the year 2002 to 2012.
The report said that Ministers of Petroleum Resources between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary oil licences, but that $183m in signature bonuses was missing from the deals.
Three of the oil licences were awarded since the current minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, took up her position in 2010, according to the report. “I have not given any discretionary awards during this administration,” Alison-Madueke told Reuters, although she added that the President had the right to do so instead of using bids if he saw fit.
Alison-Madueke, told Reuters on Tuesday that she received the report last month but that it was a draft and the government was still supposed to give input.
The one seen by Reuters was labelled “Final Report.”
The report concluded that oil majors, Shell, Total and Eni, made bumper profits from cut-price gas, while oil ministers handed out licences at their own discretion. This, while not illegal, did not follow best practice of using open bids. Hundreds of millions of dollars in signature bonuses on those deals were also missing, it said.
“We have not seen this report and are, therefore, unable to comment on the content, but we will study it if and when it is published,” a Shell spokesman said.
The report alleges international oil traders sometimes buy crude without any formal contracts, and the state oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, had short-changed the Nigerian treasury billions over the last 10 years by selling crude oil and gas to itself below market rates.
There was no suggestion that the oil majors or traders had done anything illegal, but the report highlighted a lack of transparency in their dealings in a nation rife with graft.
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