$16b Egina probe: Unqualified foreign company got N50b contract – Senate

The Senate Ad Hoc Committee Investigating Local Content and Cost Variation in the $16 billion Egina Deep Sea oil project has uncovered how an unqualified company, NOV Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited, got a whopping N50 billion contract from Total Upstream Nigeria Limited contrary to the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act of 2010.
The Senate Panel made the discovery in the course of the appearance of the Managing Director of NOV Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited, Bertrand Huet, before it.
Huet came to brief the committee on the contract initially awarded to his company by Total Upstream Nigeria Limited for $163 million, but later varied to $202 million (N50 billion).
This was contained in a statement issued by the media aide of Senator Olamilekan Adeola and chairman of the panel, Kayode Odunaro
The statement said in the course of questioning by the Adeola (APC, Lagos West) on the basis of document submitted by the company, Total Upstream, NAPIMS and Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Development Board, it was admitted by Huet, a French citizen, that he solely owned the company without any shareholding for any Nigerian, a fact that completely disqualified the company from getting such contract in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy.
By the NOGICD Act of 2010, all such companies operating in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector must have a shareholding of 51 per cent for Nigerians and 49 per cent for others to be given approval by NCDMB, the regulatory body on Local Content law.
Senator Adeola said the company that got a whopping N50 billion contract is a one man business solely owned by the managing director, adding that it was solely incorporated to corner some aspects of the Egina Project that should have been done by Nigerians.
The senator said: “There is need to unveil the true identity of NOV Oil and Gas and its operations in Nigeria. Once that is done to ascertain that the company has not breached Nigeria laws in its ownership structure, we can then go into the suspicious variation of its contract from $163 million to $202 million and related matter of non adherence to Local Content law that denied Nigerian opportunity for training, capacity building and transfer of technology.”
Adeola said as representatives of the people, they will not allow any foreigner to do what they cannot do in their countries here in Nigeria or engage in practices that do not meet international best practices, thereby shortchanging the people of Nigeria and Nigerians.
In a related development, Senator Adeola ordered that two similar companies: AVEON, and GILS Automation, engaged in the Egina Project that were billed to appear before the committee but refused risked having their chief executives arrested if they refused to show up in the next 24 hours, adding that their non appearance after being duly invited indicated they had something to hide.
“The companies should not allow the Senate to invoke Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic to order for a warrant of the arrest of the chief executives of these companies.” Adeola stated.
He however directed the executive secretary of NCDMB to stop all dealings and approvals for the companies pending their appearance before the committee.