Reps probe NNPC over alleged shady $6.8bn oil deal with Swiss oil companies

The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, set machinery in motion to probe alleged shady $6.8 billion oil deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)  and Swiss oil dealers.
To this end, the House committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Petroleum Resources (Downstream) and Justice have been mandated to investigate the matter and report to the House within four weeks.

The House resolution to probe the deal was sequel to a motion moved by Honourable Abiodun Abudu-Balogun entitled: “Urgent need to investigate the alleged connivance of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with Swiss oil dealers to rob Nigeria of billions of dollars.”

While moving the motion, Honourable Abudu-Balogun noted that there was need for the House to take seriously, “the news report by Swiss Non Governmental Advocacy Organization, the Berne declaration, detailing how the NNPC in connivance with major Swiss oil trading companies, is draining Nigeria of billion dollars revenue through the sale of crude oil below market value.”

The lawmaker further raised the alarm that, the report by the Swiss advocacy group, entitled: “Swiss Traders Opaque Deals in Nigeria,” detailed the schemes employed by the NNPC and foreign oil companies to dupe the country of over $6.8 billion through some “letter box companies.”

According to him, “the Berne declaration has described the Nigerian oil scam as the greatest fraud Africa has ever known and the report specifically mentioned Vitol and Transfigura commodity trading firms (NNPC partners ) in the shady deals and how Nigeria loses billions of dollars as large volumes of oil are exported far below market prices.”

He equally queried why “Nigeria is the only major oil producing nation that sells 100 per cent of its crude to private traders rather than market it herself and benefit from the resulting added value with the greatest number of beneficiaries of export allocations.” 

At this point, he expressed worry about the numerous damaging allegations contained in the report against NNPC and its subsidiaries accused of not publishing detailed financial reports since 2005, hence the need for the probe.

When the motion was put to vote by the Deputy Speaker, Honourable Emeka Ihedioha, it was supported by the majority of members at the session.