Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has
clarified that he approved financing loans and not contracts for the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation when President Muhammadu Buhari was away on
medical vacation.
According to a statement
by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the
Vice-President made the clarification while responding to reporters’ questions
after the groundbreaking ceremony of the multi-billion naira Bonny-Bodo Road
project, in Bonny, Rivers State.
“These were financing loans. Of
course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that
had to procure. In some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners have
to secure loans and they need authorization to secure those loans while the
President was away.
“The law actually
provides for those authorizations. So, I did grant two of them and those were
presidential approvals, but they are specifically for financing joint ventures
and they are loans not contracts,” Akande quoted the Vice-President
as saying.
Akande also had earlier tweeted, “In
response to media inquiries on the NNPC Joint Venture financing arrangements,
VP Osinbajo, as Acting President, approved the recommendations after due diligence
and adherence to established procedures”.
“This was, of course, necessary to deal with
huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which the Buhari administration inherited,
and to incentivize much-needed fresh investments in the oil and gas sector”.
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