FRAUDULENT OIL CONTRACTS DISCOVERED UNDER GOODLUCK'S ADMINISTRATION

Premium Times investigation into fraudulent crude oil deals carried out by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, have made discoveries that implicate big names Goodluck Jonathan, Alison Madueke and Tunde Ayeni.

It seems that Billions of naira have been misappropriated through a domestic crude oil transportation contract that violated Nigeria’s procurement and economic regulations.

The deal involved the transportation of five millions barrels of crude oil, monthly, from drilling terminals to the refineries using ships, and circumventing direct linking pipelines, at the cost of N3.063.00 ($15.4 USD) per barrel of crude.

The cost of this contract is proven to be several times higher what it takes to transport crude oil through the more efficient pipelines which PPMC, an arm of NNPC. The cost of transporting a barrel of crude through the pipeline is as low as N5.97.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has now admitted that the funds that were unnecessarily exorbitant and inappropriately awarded, cost Nigeria N509.3 billion.

While the this contract lasted, the NNPC still, transported crude through a national pipeline that originated from Escravos and landed in Warri Refinery before proceeding to Kaduna Refinery.

This contract was never advertised and no competitive bidding was done, a clear violation of Nigeria’s procurement law. Cheaper options were neglected. Two companies, PPP Fluid Mechanics and Ocean Marine Securities, OMS, were awarded the job by presidential and ministerial discretion.

“I do not have details” of the contract, NNPC spokesman, Ohi Alegbe, told Premium Times

Two Iraseli companies were handpicked for the logistics part of the job. While, Okunbor and Ayeni, was invited to handle the security aspect.

The contract was initially explained as a three-month trial to circumvent pipelines that were believed to be under serious threat from militants and oil thieves in the Niger Delta. It, however, lasted till August 2015, almost five years later.

Contract documents seen by Premium Times showed that each arm of the contract for the trial period was to cost NNPC N1.1 billion ($5.82 million USD) monthly. This is at the rate of N900 per barrel ($5.2 USD per barrel) split equally between shipping and security.

Shortly after the project began, Messrs. Okunbor and Ayeni sought to own the entire project, and initiated a hostile takeover of PPP FM. Eight months later, they completed the takeover and PPP FM’s founders, the Israelis, were kicked out.It is not clear how much they were paid to give up their company. It is also unclear whether they were merely used as fronts in the beginning. An increase was made, raising the cost of the contract to N6.7 billion monthly.