Fresh angle on Thursday emerged on the trending crisis of insubordination and its denial rocking the petroleum industry since the petition form Minister of State, Dr. Ibe Kachukwu leaked to the press.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday admitted that he approved the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) joint venture financing contracts as disclosed by the government-owned oil firm without recourse to the Minister of State.
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, confirmed this in a series of tweets on his confirmed Twitter handle, @akandeoj.
According to him, Osinbajo approved the recommendations for the contracts as part of necessary actions to deal with the backlog of unpaid cash calls and incentivise investments, stressing that the approval was given after due diligence and adherence to established procedure.
Akande revealed that Osinbajo approved the contract in his capacity as the Acting President when President Muhammadu Buhari was away on medical vacation.
“In response to media inquiries on NNPC joint venture financing, VP Osinbajo, as Ag President approved recommendations after due diligence and adherence to established procedure.
“Action was necessary to deal with huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which Buhari administration inherited and also to incentivise much needed fresh investments in the oil and gas sector,” he said.
This can be said to be the very first involvement of the Vice president in the brouhaha pitching the GMD of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru and Dr. Kachukwu
Explaining the matter further on the matter in Bonny Island, River state at the flag off of Bonny-Bodo road project, Osinbajo recalled that “They were financing loans, joint venture loans, that have procured so in some cases NNPC ventures have to secure loans and they need the authorization to secure those loans”.
“While the President was away, I granted authorization which is what the law provides.
“The law actually provides for that authorization, so I did grant all of those, in fact, there were two of them but those are presidential approvals but they are specifically for financing joint ventures and they are Loans not Contracts worth about N640bn”.
