The Senate Wednesday threatened to invoke Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic to order for a warrant of arrest of the chief executives of AVEON and GILS Automation engaged in the Egina Project.
Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Chairman of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee currently investigating Local Content and cost variation on the $16 billion Egina Deep Sea oil project revealed this when two similar companies- AVEON and GILS Automation- refused to honour their invitation.
Adeola, APC, Lagos West, warned that the chief executives risked arrest if they refuse to show up in the next 24 hours, saying that their non-appearance after being duly invited indicated they had something to hide in the Egina Project.
He, however, directed the Executive Secretary of NCDMB to stop all dealings and approvals for the companies, pending their appearance before the committee.
Meanwhile, the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Local Content and Cost Variation said that it has discovered that 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, NOGICD, Act of 2010.
The committee discovered this Wednesday when the Managing Director of NOV Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited, Mr. Bertrand Huet, appeared to brief it on its initially awarded contract from Total Upstream Nigeria Limited of $163 million, which was later varied to $200 million (N50 billion).
Following some questions raised by Senator Solomon Adeola on the basis of document submitted by the company, Total Upstream, the National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS and Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Development Board (NCDMB), Huet, a French citizen, admitted that he solely owned the company without any shareholding for Nigerians.
Consequently, he Senate said the admittance completely disqualified the company from getting such contract in the oil and gas sector of the economy, adding that by the NOGICD Act of 2010, all such companies operating in Nigeria 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.
According to Senator Adeola, the company that got a whopping N50 billion contract is a one man business solely owned by the managing director.
He added that the company was incorporated to corner some aspects of the Egina Project that should have been done by Nigerians.
Adeola 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.”
Senator Adeola said as representatives of the people, they would not allow any foreigner to do in Nigeria what they could not do in their countries or engaged in practices that do not meet with international best practices, thereby shortchanging Nigeria and Nigerians.
