The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, resolved to investigate the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and a multi-national oil company, AGIP, over allegations of fund diversion and failure to pay $72 million debt to a Nigerian company, Decoon Services Limited.
The lawmakers resolved to look into the matter after it received a petition from a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CSJET), laid before the House by its Deputy spokesman, Hon. Philip Agbese.
In the petition dated April 24, 2024, the Executive Director, CSJET, Com. Joshua Abah, asked the National Assembly to use its powers as conferred on it by Section 88(1) and (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As Amended).
He explained that the current case involved the alleged fraudulent diversion of funds in the sum of seventy-two million US dollars ($72,000,000) by Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited and Mr. Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of NNPCL, owed to De Coon Services Limited, a Nigerian Oil and Gas servicing company rendering services to all operators in the industry in Nigeria.
Explaining the facts giving rise to the petition, he said, “De Coon Services Limited (DSL) executed the Caterpillar General Maintenance Contract (GMC) with NAOC that includes routine Operations and Maintenance, provision of spare parts, and overhauls of all their dedicated production gas/diesel generators—a stop-gap contract which started in 2010 and ended in 2018, However, after the said tenure of the stop-gap contract, NAOC was owing DSL over Twenty-two Million Dollars, which they refused to redeem, irrespective of the fact that their JV partners (NNPC) had paid cash-calls relating to this contract to NAOC. Succinctly put, NAOC criminally and dishonestly converted the cash-calls to themselves in total breach and defiance of the agreement to pay DSL upon conclusion of the contract and receipt of the cash calls from its Joint Venture partners.”