A new twist into the $26billion NNPC oil contract allegedly approved by the NNPC emerged on Thursday with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo denying approving any of the alleged $25 billion contracts.
Osinbajo stated that contrary to reports he only approved financing arrangements for the contracts.
Speaking to reporters, after the ground-breaking multi-billion naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State, Osinbajo, stated specifically that the approvals he granted to the NNPC while he was acting president were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the corporation and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
“These were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that had to procure.
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“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” Osinbajo said.
The VP, who said he earlier tweeted on the subject matter in response to media inquiries on the NNPC Joint Venture financing arrangements, said as acting president, he 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” he added.
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