sonOfLucifer:
I see they've deleted your thread. Luckily, I saved the page as a pdf.

kettykings:



How wise of you to post a message that has very little bearing with the topic what has pipeline project to do with dry dock.

The real message is below.
A Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos has granted injunctions restraining President Goodluck Jonathan and other relevant government agencies from carrying out the order to relocate the $500 million oil project from LADOL Free Trade Zone(FTZ) in Lagos to Agga in Bayelsa State.

Also restrained in the judgment given by the Presiding Justice of the Court, J.T Tsoho on Tuesday May 12, 2015 are the National Assembly, the Federal Ministers of Transport and Justice/Attorney General of the Federation.

The court said they were being restrained from implementing the directive of President Jonathan that oil and gas-related cargoes must be discharged at Intels facilities in Onne, Warri and Calabar Ports.

According to Prof. Fidelis Oditah QC (Queens Counsel) and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who filed the motion on behalf of LADOL, the injunctions ensure that all related agencies, including the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), must allow vessels and cargoes to proceed directly to any Port of choice, including oil and gas cargoes.

The Injunctions further prevent the passing of the amendments to the Oil and Gas Export Free Zones Act which sought, among other changes, to impose a foreign owned monopoly on the movement of oil and gas cargoes in Nigeria; Transfer control of 12 Free Zone’s in Nigeria currently under the NEPZA Act to the control of the Oil and Gas Free Zone, which is controlled by the same foreign owned monopoly company.

$3.8bn Egina Project Takes Off in Apapa

12 Sep 2014

The $3.8 billion Egina floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) situated at Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics (LADOL) base, Apapa has commenced operation.
This is sequel to a renewed pact between the technical facilitators, LADOL and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI).

The two companies are expected to inject not less than $300 million into the creation of the new facility, which is expected to provide employment opportunities to many unemployed Nigerians.

The project earlier awarded to the two firms, is now taking off under a fresh Joint Venture (JV) partnership called, SHI-MCI Free Zone Enterprise.

Managing Directors of the JV, Dr Amy Jadesimi and a representative of Samsung, Mr. KS Lee, in a joint statement said construction of the facility is expected to last for 18 months adding that, once completed, it will be capable of fabricating 1,000 metric tonnes per month, as well as integrating all other FPSOs expected to be built in Nigeria for the next decades.

According to the partners, the project will generate an estimated 50,000 direct and indirect jobs in Nigeria over the next few years.

The project is in line with the provisions of Nigeria’s Local Content Act 2010, which mandates the domestication of up to 70 per cent of oil and gas activities, a move that is expected to put the country at par with Brazil, the world sixth largest economy.

Jadesimi and Lee described the project as “one of the largest FPSOs in the world, with a storage capacity of 2.3 million barrels, and a targeted production capacity of 200,000 barrels per day.”

According to them, billions of dollars that are currently spent overseas will be domesticated in Nigeria for the first time and billions of dollars in new revenues will be earned from market expansion. This increase in in-country capacity will position Nigeria to become West Africa’s hub, generate sustainable long term GDP growth required for Nigeria to become one of the world’s leading economies in line with vision 2020.

Stakeholders in the maritime industry said the siting of the project at LADOL Base, which has the strong backing of South Korea-based SHI, will boost local content in the country.

They added that the successful completion of the facility will significantly increase the sizes of the fabrication, engineering, procurement, training, design and raw materials such as steel and allied markets in Nigeria.
Furthermore, they said it would ensure that large vessels, including FPSOs, are integrated (partially constructed and assembled) in Nigeria.

They lauded the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, management of the Nigerian Nation petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Nigerian Content Management Board (NCMB), and Total for ensuring the successful take-off of the project.

NLNG eyes $1.5bn debut ship yard in Nigeria

June 22, 2015



Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) is sponsoring the construction of the first major ship yard in Africa's biggest economy at the cost of $1.5-billion, in its attempt to turn the country into a hub for maritime operations on the continent.

Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest crude producer and Africa's top oil exporter but it does not have a drydock for maintaining and repairing large crude vessels, a major drawback for carriers sailing to the country, NLNG spokesperson Tony Okonedo told Reuters.

Only South Africa had such a facility on the continent, Okonedo said, meaning that ships travelled a long distance for repairs. Nigeria has two facilities that can only accommodate small vessels, he said.

Okonedo said Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries have both agreed a $30-million commitment towards the construction of the facility, which would be located in Badagry, near Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

"It could potentially be used to transport the 2.5-million barrel a day crude business in Nigeria," Okonedo said on the sidelines of a media briefing.

Okonedo said the NLNG organised a roadshow earlier this year to market the dry dock project to investors, which included multinational oil companies in Nigeria, with large exploration and upstream activities.

He said NLNG, which is owned by Nigeria's state-oil company NNPC, Royal Dutch Shell, French oil company Total and Italy's Eni was in discussions with a strategic investor for the project.

It appointed France's BNP Paribas and Guaranty Trust Bank to help raise around $1.6-billion two years ago to build six new LNG carrier ships, expanding its fleet to 30.

The construction of the dry dock, with a size that can accommodate 185 football fields, will take up to 48 months to complete and would commence once all the funding was in place, he said.

The company, which was set up over two decades ago, has a capacity to produce 22-million metric tonnes of liquefied gas a year. It obtains its gas supply from upstream oil companies and liquefies it for export.

It has long-term supply contracts with buyers in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and France and also sells on the spot market. Revenues for the first half shed 25 percent, in line with the fall in crude prices, NLNG said.

barcanista:
People are just making noise. It was the same Jonathan that ordered for the probe of Swap/OPAs. It was the same allison that wrote EFCC to institute the probe. We are yet to see Buhari's input. If anything comes out of the probe, we shall know who the perpetrators are. APC cannot use propaganda to shout when GEJ was determined to purge NNPC.

seunmsg:
Buhari should do quick and institute a probe into the affairs of the operations of Nigerians oil industry in the past six years. If it is true that the refineries are in great shape and we were still spending huge resources to import refined products, then, all those responsible for this scam should be made to face the music. We can't have functional refineries that can meet local consumption and someone somewhere will starve the refineries of crude oil simply for selfish reasons.

Obiagelli:
IsraeliAIRFORCE and kaboninc can you guys see the point of my argument yesterday.

thanks TheOtherview for this thread.

lalasticlala, ishilove


garrix7

philips70:


Exactly. You know these career guys are not as sagacious as politicians who are chronic jobbers.

philips70:


Jonathan was never fooled. We are talking about a PhD holder who has worked in OMPADEC as a director here. He was head, neck and shoulders involved in whatever scam in NNPC. We are not fools! As we speak lots of management staff of NNPC have resigned and ran away. This is confirmed gists.

In order to stop the theft, a contract, he said, was awarded to an Israeli company to lift crude oil from Escravos to the Warri refinery in February 2011 under a Proof of Concept Agreement, but it was unable to meet the terms of the contract.

“Subsequently, a Nigerian firm, Ocean Marine Tankers (OMT) Limited founded by Captain Hosa Okunbor, Tunde Ayeni and others, took over the job. At first, OMT started moving crude oil from the Escravos terminal to the Warri refinery.
“OMT invested heavily in a very large crude carrier (VLCC) with the capacity to lift 2 million barrels, then transferred the oil to smaller vessels that moved to the refinery and offload their content at the plant.

“You would recall when OMT commissioned MT Abiola and MT Igbinosa in 2013 in Warri to convey crude oil to the refinery.
“In spite of this arrangement with OMT to circumvent oil theft, this was stopped with the swaps and OPAs,” he said.
Confirming the development, an official of OMT said his company had not been allowed to convey crude oil with its tankers since last year but continues to be paid by NNPC.

“When we took over the contract from the Israeli firm, with the ship-to-ship transfer mechanism, we reduced losses to 0.19 per cent as opposed to the 0.5 per cent allowable under the contract.
“In fact, the former GMD of NNPC (Yakubu) was so satisfied with the arrangement that he classified it as security contract and extended it to include the Port Harcourt refinery.

“But since last year, we have stopped conveying crude oil to Port Harcourt and Warri due to the swaps and OPAs,” he said.
When asked how NNPC ensured that crude oil was not diverted under the marine lifting contract, the OMT official said a shipping letter was issued to his company, permitting it to obtain a bill of lading to load from Escravos.
“Like all crude oil lifting contracts, officials of Chevron, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), NNPC, the Navy and other security agencies must verify that we have loaded 2 million barrels to our VLCC.

“Owing to the shallow draft at the refineries, the VLCC stays offshore and transfers to the smaller vessels which then move to refineries to offload. Then checks are done to verify that the quantity lifted from the terminal is the same as the quantity of crude oil offloaded at the refineries,” he said.

The OMT official added that at the end of the month, the refineries also undertook a reconciliation process to ascertain that the crude oil delivered was the same as what was lifted at the terminals, “because the yield from the crude oil that is delivered to the refinery is accountable to PPMC”.

“But like I said, this has stopped since last year because of the desire to sustain the swaps and OPAs,” he said.
The company official also alleged that oil theft and vandalism by criminal elements that hot-tap the pipelines have continued unimpeded while persons who want to disrupt OMT’s marine vessel lifting contract recently attacked their vessels.
Further enquiries from NNPC revealed that its officials are presently confident that the FCC units at the refineries have been fixed and have the capacity to produce petrol and other products.

One official informed THISDAY that crude oil accounts for almost 90 per cent of refining cost, and if the refineries were allowed to function, this would significantly reduce the federal government’s subsidy bill, because at current crude oil prices of slightly over $60 per barrel, the plants could operate at a profit.

How Crude Oil Swaps, OPAs Stalled NNPC Refinery Operations

21 Jun 2015



The Crude for Petroleum Products Exchange Agreements, better known as crude oil swaps, and Offshore Processing Agreements (OPAs), entered into by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and oil traders between 2011 and 2014, are to blame for the abysmally low output from NNPC’s refineries and the high importation of petroleum products into the country, THISDAY has learnt.

Extensive interviews with officials of NNPC and industry operators revealed that contrary to the perception that has been created for some time that the nation’s four refineries were operating at suboptimal capacity, thus necessitating the massive importation of petroleum products, certain elements within the system, with endorsement of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, ensured that the refineries were starved of crude oil.

Last Thursday, NNPC’s public affairs unit announced that its four refineries would resume operations next month.
Spokesman of the corporation, Ohi Alegbe, said the refineries – the 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) Port Harcourt plant, 110,000 bpd Kaduna plant and the 125,000 bpd Warri plant – would commence operations after a successful overhaul of their facilities.
He said: “The turn-around-maintenance has been on (going) for some time. We did not just want to make any noise about it. The refineries will start production as soon as they have delivery of crude oil for refining.
“Even when the refineries work at full capacity, they can only produce around 19 million litres of petrol per day.”

With Nigeria consuming 40 million litres daily, to make up for the remaining 21 million litres, Nigeria will still have to rely on importation, he added.
Expectedly, NNPC’s announcement aroused interest and questions were asked as to how come the plants, which had not functioned almost two decades, were suddenly ready to be brought back to life under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Investigations showed that efforts to repair the refineries started when the management of the plants, under the supervision of the former Group Managing Director (GMD), Mr. Andrew Yakubu, and a former Group Executive Director, Refineries and Petrochemicals (R&P), Mr. Tony Ogbuigwe, worked surreptitiously to ensure that the plants were functional. Ogbuigwe was before his promotion to GED R&P, the Managing Director of Port Harcourt refinery.

THISDAY learnt that after the nationwide protests over the removal of fuel subsidy in 2012, Alison-Madueke had promised to fix the plants using the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) instead of awarding the contracts for their repair to journeymen contractors.
However, after protracted negotiations with the OEMs, NNPC failed to go ahead with the rehabilitation due to the exorbitant fees they had demanded for the repair of the plants.

With no progress made with the OEMs, Alison-Madueke, in November 2013 announced that the refineries would be privatised under the supervision of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).

But the NNPC chapter of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), whose members threatened to go on strike if the refineries were privatised, resisted her push for the sale of the plants.

[b]Frustrated with the impasse, Yakubu, using his approval limit as the NNPC boss, but without the knowledge of Alison-Madueke, started making $2.5 million monthly to the management of the three refineries and encouraged them to revamp the plants with local and external engineers.

Under this arrangement, the refineries were fixed about a year ago and ready to churn out petroleum products, which would have slashed the volume of imported fuel by more than 50 per cent and significantly reduced pressure on the country’s foreign reserves.
In addition, the construction of a power plant for the Port Harcourt refinery was concluded at the beginning of the year to enhance its ability to operate efficiently.

However, instead of ensuring that crude oil was made available to the refineries for domestic consumption, Alison-Madueke, in conjunction with the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), increased the crude oil swaps and OPAs from some 270,000 bpd to 445,000 bpd, thus starving the refineries of crude oil.[/b]

The swaps and OPAs were awarded to Aiteo, Ontario Oil & Gas Limited, Sahara Energy, Taleveras Petroleum Trading BV and Swiss firm, Trafigura, among other oil traders.
When contacted on the issue, an aide of the former minister claimed that the reason crude oil was not made available to the plants was because of frequent crude oil theft and vandalism of the pipelines, resulting in losses of up to 30 per cent.

“Also, when the crude oil got to the refineries, the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units were not working, so we were getting mainly base oils such as naphtha, low pour fuel oil (LPFO), kerosene and diesel.

“Meanwhile, petrol, which is PPMC’s major requirement and accounts for more than 70 per cent of all petroleum products consumed in the country, was not being produced.
“The lack of production of petrol, which is one of the lightest distillates from the refining process, also resulted in another loss of 30 per cent.

“This in turn impacted on NNPC’s ability to remit funds to the Federation Account since monies from the procurement of crude oil meant for domestic refining by NNPC is supposed to go to the federation for sharing by the three tiers of government.
“It was based on this that the former minister called a meeting and increased the allocation for the swaps and OPAs such that little or no crude oil was made available to the refineries,” the aide explained.

Yet, further investigations by THISDAY revealed that even though there were frequent cases of crude oil theft and vandalism, the crude oil swaps and OPAs could have been largely avoided because there is a subsisting contract to move crude oil from Chevron’s Escravos oil terminal to the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries by marine vessels.

Despite the subsisting contract, the operator was not allowed to lift crude oil to the refineries since last year but continues to be paid by NNPC.
An oil industry operator, conversant with the lifting contract by marine vessels, explained that elements within the petroleum sector that preferred the swaps and OPAs ignored this arrangement because of the loopholes that allowed traders to lift crude oil and under-deliver petrol including the derivatives or base oils to PPMC.

He explained that the recent probe by the Department of State Security (DSS) into the swaps and OPAs had scared the traders into importing outstanding cargoes, resulting in the increased arrival of fuel-laden vessels at Nigeria’s seaports in recent weeks.
The operator, who preferred not to be named, confirmed that before the marine vessel lifting contract was awarded, NNPC was losing up to 40 per cent of its crude oil to theft and vandalism of the pipelines.

PassingShot:

True that. The woman was a big time scammer!

How Crude Oil Swaps, OPAS Stalled NNPC Refinery Operations -- https://www.nairaland.com/2394352/how-crude-oil-swaps-opas

How Crude Oil Swaps, OPAs Stalled NNPC Refinery Operations

21 Jun 2015
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Extensive interviews with officials of NNPC and industry operators revealed that contrary to the perception that has been created for some time that the nation’s four refineries were operating at suboptimal capacity, thus necessitating the massive importation of petroleum products, certain elements within the system, with endorsement of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, ensured that the refineries were starved of crude oil.
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Frustrated with the impasse, Yakubu, using his approval limit as the NNPC boss, but without the knowledge of Alison-Madueke, started making $2.5 million monthly to the management of the three refineries and encouraged them to revamp the plants with local and external engineers.

Under this arrangement, the refineries were fixed about a year ago and ready to churn out petroleum products, which would have slashed the volume of imported fuel by more than 50 per cent and significantly reduced pressure on the country’s foreign reserves.
In addition, the construction of a power plant for the Port Harcourt refinery was concluded at the beginning of the year to enhance its ability to operate efficiently.

However, instead of ensuring that crude oil was made available to the refineries for domestic consumption, Alison-Madueke, in conjunction with the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), increased the crude oil swaps and OPAs from some 270,000 bpd to 445,000 bpd, thus starving the refineries of crude oil.

Kaduna’s Not So Disappointing Budget - El Rufai

25 May 2012
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The Kaduna state government has prepared ‘2012-2014 draft multi-year estimates' that hopes to drive economic and social development if the state through sound financial planning. However, the 272-page document falls short of boldly facing the real developmental challenges of the state as the capital expenditure plans for 2012 to 2014 are not up to the developing country target of assigning 70% of total budget. It is this statement of the government’s intentions that we will take analyze.

The 2012 budget for the state is N154,331,452,763, an increase of 13.01% or N17.7bn over 2011’s budget of N136,564,380,343. The 2012 budget has N85bn or 55% as capital expenditure, and N69.3bn or 45% as recurrent expenditure. Analyzing the recurrent budget further, N29.5bn or 19% of the total budget is for personnel costs, N26.5bn or 17% of the total budget is for overheads, while N8bn or 5% set aside for to service the state's public debt left behind by earlier administrations. The State has budgeted N950 million as the revenue contribution to local government councils, as required by law. Kaduna is the only state whose budget specifically provided for this. Governor Yakowa is also said to be the only governor of the state ever that does not divert local government allocations, and if true, should be strongly commended.

Kaduna’s IGR estimate for 2012 is N35.7bn, an increase of N22.9bn as against the states IGR of N12.8bn in 2011. Looking at the details of the budget, while it is not clear what factors will be responsible for this huge leap, a contributor might be the revenue from the ministry of lands and survey which is projected to increase from N409.9 million in 2011 to N6bn in 2012, and the state's Board of Internal Revenue which hopes to raise inflows from N9.4bn in 2011 to N24bn in 2012. The budgeted personnel costs of N29.5bn as against its IGR of N35.7bn demonstrates that Kaduna is capable of paying its staff salaries even without monthly federal allocations, so is not one of the "parastatal states", but with only N6.2bn left for overhead costs, it needs to slim down the size and cost of government and learn to live within its means.

The budget would be financed from N35.7bn as IGR, N48bn from federation account, N8bn as VAT, N500 million as privatization proceeds, and nearly N3bn from land related levies and other sundry sources. Kaduna State plans to borrow a total of N14bn from domestic and external lenders this year, and expects another N13.7bn as grants-in-aid from abroad and federal agencies like UBEC and ETF. Kaduna has enjoyed significant federation account allocations in the past: N39.5bn in 2011, and an estimated N48bn in 2012. Indeed over a period of 9 years from 1999 to 2008, Kaduna state received the second highest FAAC transfers of N232.49bn, amongst the states in the North. This is substantial and could yield results if prudently managed and well-spent.

The sectoral summary of the budget shows that capital expenditure budget apportioned the economic sector N30.2bn or 36%, the social sector N24bn or 28%, Regional Development got N16bn or 18% and General Administration assigned N14.7bn or 17%. The State Government needs to revisit these ratios to assign more money for the social sector - particularly health, education and scholarships for citizens of the state studying in higher institutions.

Kaduna state should quite easily lead all states in the North Western region in educational attainment; after all, the state is referred to as the ‘Center of Learning’, and it is. There are at least 20 institutions of higher learning and research in the state, including three premier military training institutions. The state has N10.9bn budgeted for education in 2012, as opposed to N11.1bn in the previous year including N500m for the expansion and rehabilitation of existing schools, a pathetic N94 million for Almajiri and CAN schools, a low N96 million for teachers' quarters and NYSC orientation camp improvement, paltry N5million for expanding libraries, and N967 million for the construction of 136 units of classrooms.

According to the NBS 2010 National Literacy Survey, Kaduna has a youth literacy rate of 67.3% as opposed to Sokoto’s 33.1% and Kebbi’s 50.2%, an adult literacy rate of 53.5% as opposed to Sokoto’s 22.1% and Kebbi’s 29.1%. According to this survey, the North Central has the highest adult literacy levels with 56.4%, followed by the North East with 42%, and the North West with 31.7%.

How Diezani Alison-Madueke Plans To Sell Refineries To Fronts

NOV 26, 2013



e planned sale of Nigeria's four refineries next year is a well-designed scam calculated to hand over the country's premium downstream assets to associates and fronts of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who is also representing the financial interests of President Goodluck Jonathan in the deal, SaharaReporters can report.

According to several senior officials at the ministry, four of the minister's friends have been penciled in to emerge as preferred bidders by “any means necessary” even as the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) has announced its readiness to commence the sales next year. Top on the list of the “preferred” buyers is Mr. Jide Omokore, the multi-billionaire PDP figure who has received numerous juicy deals since Ms. Alison-Madueke was made Minister of Petroleum Resources by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010. Mr. Omokore is the chairman of Energy Resources Group, whose subsidiary, Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited, was involved in a highly scandalous operatorship take-over of the oil mining licenses (OMLs) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in 2011.

Mr. Omokore, whose private jet is regularly put at the disposal of Ms. Alison-Madueke (as do jets by her other fronts and associates), famously funded an obscene wedding in Dubai for his son, Oluwatosin, last June. Some estimates put the cost of the wedding, which was attended by state governors, ministers, senior civil servants, senators, former governors and political godfathers, at $10 million. Oluwatosin’s bride is Faisal AbdulKadir-Fari, a daughter of Ambassador Abdulkadir-Fari, then the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

Another “preferred” buyer, Kola Aluko was also involved in the controversial OML operatorship deal through his company, Septa Energy, a subsidiary of Seven Energy. While Mr. Omokore's company got oil bloc numbers 26, 30, 34, and 42, Igho Salome's Taleveras got OMLs 4, 38 and 41. In the questionable deal, Shell divested its operatorship in the OMLs. By law, the ownership automatically reverted to the NNPC which manages oil assets on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria. At first, the NNPC had transferred its operatorship to its exploration subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).

But in a curious twist, the NPDC said it did not have the financial resources to operate the OMLs. The group then organized a “strategic loan” deal with Atlantic Energy and Septa Energy to provide the funds. Under the questionable deal, Mr. Omokore and Mr. Aluko's companies were to receive crude oil allocation of over 40,000 barrels per day as “loan repayment.” An oil industry expert told SaharaReporters that the deal, which was officially called “strategic alliance and service contract,” will cost Nigerian taxpayers billions of dollars.

Another NNPC insider told Sahara Reporters, “Where in the world would you own seven lucrative oil blocks and then claim you do not have the finances to operate them? Those are enormous bankable assets. There is no bank NPDC will approach in the world that will not jump at the opportunity to finance the operations. Remember these are not mere oil prospecting licenses (OPLs). They are OMLs. Oil had been found there. Shell had been producing oil from the wells. It only decided to relinquish its interest to focus on in its offshore wells.”

Several of our sources questioned NPDC’s claim that it needed to bring in Atlantic Energy and Septa Energy to finance the production. “It all had to do with the minister’s financial stake,” said one of them, insisting that Ms. Alison-Madueke had a reputation for tailoring oil policies to benefit her pocket.

“The same NNPC that claimed it could not secure the finances to operate the oil blocks later took out a loan of $1.6 billion to pay dubious debts owed to shady oil dealers,” another insider told Sahara Reporters, further highlighting how greedy and selfish government officials strangulate the country. He said the minister cannot come up with any satisfactory justification for her scandalous policy of mortgaging the country's oil assets to her friends.

Meanwhile, our sources identified the other two “preferred” buyers for the refineries as Talevaras, a firm owned Mr. Igho Salome, and Sahara Energy, owned by the trio of Tonye Vole, Tope Osinubi and Ade Odunsi. Talevaras has increasingly come under the spotlight because of its sudden rise to prominence in Nigeria’s business scene. The firm was recently declared the “winner” of the bid for the Afam Power Plant, despite its lack of any experience in the power sector. The Afam Power Plc was among 18 assets of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which were put up for privatization. Initially, none of the bids received for Afam Power Plc was deemed qualified. But the government suddenly announced Taleveras as the winners of the bid.

“I can assure you that the same style will be adopted to hand over Nigeria’s refineries to the minister's fronts, usually referred to as preferred buyers,” an official of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources said. He continued, “It is not a coincidence that the minister went to announce to the whole world that the refineries would be sold first quarter next year even when there were no such plans disclosed to the BPE. It should be of interest you that the BPE made its own pronouncement a week after the minister's, just to rubber-stamp it. BPE indirectly exposed her plot when it said the process would commence first quarter next year, rather than the refineries being sold first quarter next year as pronounced by her.”

Sahara Energy was also indicted in a report by a Swiss non-governmental organization, the Berne Declaration. The report revealed that Nigerian oil marketing companies perpetrated widespread subsidy fraud running into several billions of dollars. Titled “Swiss Traders’ Opaque Deals in Nigeria,” it also accused the NNPC of colluding with international oil traders to defraud Nigeria. The report revealed that Sahara Energy, Rahamaniyya Group, Aiteo Energy Resources Limited, Ontario Oil and Gas Limited, Tridax Energy, Mezcor Limited and MRS Group had established subsidiaries, also called "letter-box" companies, in Geneva, Switzerland, with no real business activities.

The report disclosed that these companies established the subsidiaries primarily for tax advantages, and also for easy access to international capital. But four of the companies, namely Sahara Energy, Rahamaniyya, Aiteo Energy and MRS, were investigated by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee and cleared in a widely discredited report that culminated in the infamous $620,000 bribery scandal involving the chairman of the House probe committee, Farouk Lawan, and billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola.

According to the Swiss NGO report, the opaque partnership between NNPC and the Swiss oil traders ensures that the profit generated escapes state coffers. Describing this as “not trivial,” the report stated: “By way of example, in 2011 the amount withheld from state coffers came to $8.739 billion. The public coffers were directly penalized. The same year, the revenues from oil fell by 39 per cent against the amount budgeted. And this is despite a rise in the price of oil.”

queensmith:


Sounding like my future baby daddy

how you doing!

Mamaflex:
Can't read an article without paragraphs

G7 provides Buhari with list of corrupt Nigerians



STRONG indications have emerged of world power’s resolve to assist the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, in its avowed fight against corruption, by reportedly providing him with unimpeachable pieces of evidence and information about allegedly corrupt Nigerians in public offices and where their alleged funds and questionable property are domiciled abroad.

Nigerian Tribune was told by a close government source that a list of the alleged corrupt Nigerians, including elected public officials, appointed officials and their collaborators in the private sector, was said to have been made available to Buhari while attending the G7 meeting in Germany.

Looted public funds reportedly stashed abroad were said to be included in the package the world leaders reportedly made available to Buhari, with a commission to recover such funds as an encouraging step in getting global assistance on the issues on his “wish list.”

The top government source disclosed that the president was unequivocally told by his hosts that the recovery of the looted funds must be seen to be religiously done by his administration before their home countries and other global bodies could be financially supportive of Nigeria, as well as rendering help in other areas Buhari was seeking their assistance.

The said list reportedly contained names of serving and past governors, past ministers and government contractors, especially in the oil and gas sector.

Apart from banks where the alleged slush funds were domiciled, locations of assets suspected to have been illegally acquired were reportedly listed in the said list, which was said to have been a product of years of painstaking discreet investigation abroad.

A lot of assets allegedly illegally acquired by these public officials were said to have been largely traced to South Africa and Dubai.

An immediate past governor of a state in the South was said to have been linked to a multi-billion Naira property in South-Africa, where four separate huge buildings were allegedly bought by him at a go.

With property being reportedly registered by nationality in another country, a simple search of letter “N” was said to have brought up names of Nigerians with massive property investment.

Those property, according to the source, are now of rock-bottom value, compared to the huge funds invested in them.

It was learnt that in achieving the desire of killing corruption in the country, a total overhaul of the existing anti-corruption bodies would be done for a more effective operation.

The government source noted that though the planned merger of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) was almost a certainty, the focus of the operation of the amalgamated body might be a bit different from what it used to be.

According to the source, greater attention might be focused on recovery of looted funds instead of prosecuting and jailing offenders, though the latter would always be a part of the anti-corruption crusade to serve as a deterrent.

Nigerian Tribune was told that a situation where someone would go to jail for a couple of years to return to enjoy the looted funds would not serve the interest of the justice system, adding that all proceeds of crime must be taken off the offenders.

It was further learnt that one major area of corruption that would be focussed was “presumptive” asset declaration, whereby government officials declare assets they don’t have in anticipation of acquiring them illegally while in office.

Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana, is reportedly tipped to head the planned management team of the hybrid anti-corruption body.

He had earlier been projected for the Attorney General of the Federation position alongside Chief Niyi Akintola, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu and the immediate past Lagos State governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, all from the South-West, while Prince Lateef Fagbemi from the North-Central was also said to be interested in the job.

Chad says it bombs Boko Haram bases in Nigeria; Nigeria denies it

Jun 19, 2015

N'DJAMENA Chad's military said it had carried out air strikes against Boko Haram bases in Nigeria in retaliation for twin suicide bombings in Chad this week that killed at least 34 people, but the announcement was strongly rejected by Nigeria.

The air raids caused heavy human and material damage to six of the Islamist militants' bases, Chad's military said late on Wednesday, without providing further details.

Nigerian authorities denied reports that the attacks had taken place on its soil, saying they were likely to have instead hit targets in neighbouring Niger.

"The claim that the Chadian military have conducted air strikes against six terrorist camps in Nigeria is not correct," said military spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade.

A few hours after Chad's announcement, Boko Haram militants attacked two villages in neighbouring Niger's southern region of Diffa, killing 38 civilians, most of them women and children, and burning over 100 homes, Niger's government said.

The attackers drove into the villages in the Gueskerou area, along the banks of the Komadugu River which separates Niger and Nigeria, late on Wednesday in cars and on motorbikes, security officials told Reuters. They shot residents before setting fire to the thatched houses where others were hiding.

"Air and ground operations by our defence and security forces are under way in the sector to catch and neutralise the terrorists," the government statement said.

By mounting two major attacks outside its northern Nigerian stronghold in a few days, Boko Haram has demonstrated its ability to strike back in defiance of the coalition of regional armies that has driven it from many of its Nigerian strongholds.

Chad has been a driving force behind the regional campaign, which has inflicted a series of defeats on Boko Haram since January.

Monday's simultaneous suicide attacks on a police headquarters and a training school in N'Djamena were the first of their kind in Chad.

Authorities in Chad said four Boko Haram fighters were among the dead and at least five suspects have been detained in connection with the attacks, but no one has claimed responsibility for the bombings.

"Our defence and security forces will hunt down without mercy these terrorists without faith or law, so that spilling the blood of Chadians will not go unpunished," said Wednesday's written statement by army spokesman Colonel Azem Bermendoa.

Chad has announced measures including a ban on head-to-toe burqas to tighten security in the capital, home to the headquarters of a 3,000-strong French military mission.

A Reuters correspondent in N'Djamena said he had not seen any women wearing burqas on the streets since Wednesday's announcement.

(Additional reporting by Abdoulaye Massalaki in Niamey and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Writing by Daniel Flynn and Joe Bavier; Editing by Andrew Roche and Mark Trevelyan)

texazzpete:
To be honest, there's something seriously OFF about her response.

Police broke into your house and carted away your 'husband's car' and your official car (that now belongs to you). You pen an open letter and not even once talk about going to court to pursue legal recourse to recovering your cars, or any other recovery measures you'd expect an aggrieved citizen to use!

Nah, that just doesn't ring right with me. Nobody will surrender their personal cars without a fight.

“Femi did not stop there. Nigerians will recall that his Special Assistant was caught at the Airport while ferrying obscene sums of money on his behalf. Unfortunately, a cover up quickly and successfully came in between.Besides, many utility vehicles of the ministry mysteriously surfaced in Ghana where they were converted to domestic use by his family and concubines. Uproar in the Ministry led the EFCC to later recover some of them.

The monetization policy of the government allows public officers to leave government with their official vehicles as this is in lieu of vehicle, allowance, transport and other allowances, which they cannot draw because of the monetization policy of 2002.

The committee on monetization of fringe benefits in the public service of the federation was set up by Mr. President on November 11, 2002, under the chairmanship of the secretary to the government of the federation, Chief Ekaette. The establishment of the committee became necessary because over the years the cost of governance has continued to escalate, arising mostly from the burden of providing basic amenities to public servants by the government. These amenities include residential accommodation, transport facilities, medical services, and utilities such as electricity, water and telephone.

Some benefits enjoyed by public servants have already been fully or partially monetized. These include leave grant entertainment and allowance; other benefits that are to be monetized under the programme are residential accommodation, provision of vehicles, fuelling/maintenance of vehicles, provision of drivers and medical treatment. Monetization document have displayed a great deal of conviction and optimism, but it will not be surprising if skepticism greets the new policy, in the light of experiences with the past initiatives and programmes. More importantly is the macro economic effects of the policy on the general economy. In other words, does Nigerian monetization policy of beneficial to public workers? Will the policy ensure financial efficiency in governance? The paper is organized into four sections, after introduction; section 2 reviews the goals principles and structure of monetization policy. Section 3 examines the macro economic effects of the policy.

menix:
Am. Waiting for the APshits to come nd say this is vendetta as dey did on Wike's thread..

Abeg I encourage more Governors to follow suit, this will discourage last minute looting..

Slynonny:
But some apc e.diots were criticizing Wike for recovering stolen vehicles.
My House boy sorry Husband Buhari the Dogo Yaro Daura President Old tasteless wine is a disgrace to MANHOOD.
#Aisha_Buhari_d_Prostitute.

makzeze:
Wife of British District Officer while she was being carried by two able bodied men for a strawling in Eastern Nigeria(south east and south south of today) in 1940.


Source:http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/aminiya/index.php/waiwaye/7666-waiwaye-baba-shettima

Judge E. Gorlia's second journey in the Belgian Congo from February 1915 to March 1917.

The hammock was the only conveyance available for travel on land. It was swung beneath a bamboo pole carried on the shoulders of two strong African men. They could travel 20 to 30 miles a day. In normal time, there were four pairs of men for the hammock, two men carrying at a time. Men strong enough were almost impossible to find because they were likely to go off to work in the mines.

Kitsune:
The report listed the 13 states that had yet to provide details of their IGR for 2014 as Abia, Adamawa, Borno, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Kwara, Ondo, Taraba and Yobe.

Obviously some people just dont know how to read. Thats for all those asking about Kano.

EFCC operatives, who had been on his trail for days, our source said, stormed his residence Thursday and drove him in an unmarked car to the commission’s headquarters in the Maitama district of the nation’s capital.

LETTER: Nigeria must stop exaggerating its capabilities

JUNE 18 2015



I WELCOME Adekeye Adebajo’s rejoinder ( No evidence of SA’s appeasement of Nigeria , , June 15) to my recent piece on SA-Nigeria relations ( SA too timid in handling Nigeria , May 29). Despite the personal attacks on me, his article raises interesting issues that are worth responding to.

He dares me to provide an example of when SA has appeased Nigeria. I am happy to do so. Many South Africans were deeply offended and angered by the callous manner in which the Nigerian authorities handled the deaths of South Africans in Lagos. And they were particularly dismayed by the placatory and overly accommodating way in which SA’s authorities dealt with their Nigerian counterparts in this matter. Other governments would not have tolerated the kind of foot-dragging, incompetence and insensitivity that typified Nigeria’s response to the deaths. SA’s government badly let its citizens down, all in the name of preserving a prickly bilateral relationship.

It is interesting that Dr Adebajo found it necessary to detail Nigeria’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle. That was uncalled for as what he stated is already common knowledge. Perhaps he wanted to make a point that Nigeria’s contribution was more important than those of other African countries. If that’s his argument, I strongly disagree. Countries such as Zambia and Mozambique may not have shouted loudly from the rooftops about the roles they played in SA’s liberation struggle, but that doesn’t mean theirs were lesser roles. They made serious sacrifices and bore the brunt of the devastation wrought by the apartheid state’s regional destabilisation.

He remarks that South Africans ought to be educated about the debt of gratitude they owe to the continent. But that is exactly what I said in my article, when I noted that "South Africans should be thankful for, and should not forget, the support they received". However, I also noted that SA had done a great deal to reciprocate the support it received. Just last weekend at the African Union summit, it was announced that South African taxpayers would soon be paying R700m a year for the maintenance of the continental body. The question, which Dr Adebajo deftly sidestepped, is: How much more must SA do to repay its debt to Africa and when will it be accepted by its detractors as an authentic African country with a sincere commitment to Africa’s development?

Dr Adebajo questions the fact that SA was involved in peace-building and peace-keeping efforts in Mozambique, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Let me assure him: the information used in my article was not a thumbsuck; it was culled from various reports of the South African National Defence Force and from the speeches of successive defence ministers. SA was involved, in a leading or supporting role, in Operations Rachel and Cooper (Mozambique) and in Operation Montego (Liberia). In the case of Sierra Leone, it played a key role in post-conflict peace building and was instrumental in the creation of the Kimberley Process, which was aimed at halting the trade in conflict diamonds. If Dr Adebajo took the trouble to do some basic research, he would have come across this widely available information. In any case, my point was not to quibble over which country did what. It was to highlight the enormous burden of responsibility SA has been carrying in terms of maintaining peace, not only in its regional neighbourhood but across Africa. It is telling that Dr Adebajo did not concede this point in his riposte.

Dr Adebajo labels me an economic illiterate. I will defer to him on that but will not let him get away with problematic assertions. His point that Nigeria has called for greater access to the South African market implies that SA has been maintaining protectionist policies against Nigeria. Nothing could be further from the truth. In terms of trade, it is a fact that Nigeria’s large surplus with SA has been driven by rising oil imports into the South African market. Oil is Nigeria’s most competitive export product and, despite making some progress towards economic diversification, the country essentially remains an oil economy. The question then is whether Nigeria has other products it can competitively export to SA. If Dr Adejabo took the time to seek an answer to this question, he would find that the problem is not South African protectionism, but simply that Nigeria does not have sufficiently diversified products to export to SA. He should not blame SA for this Nigerian weakness.

As for the claim that SA has blocked Nigerian companies from operating in the country, this is also unfounded. SA has one of the most open investment regimes in the world and many foreign companies operate profitably in this country. Nothing prevents Nigerian companies from doing business in SA. Of course, the South African market is fiercely competitive and that could be the reason there are no significant Nigerian businesses here: there are extremely few Nigerian companies that can compete in the South African market. That is Nigeria’s problem, not SA’s.

Nigeria has tremendous potential to become a great African power. But, in spite of its obvious promise, it is still a very underdeveloped country with many challenges and disadvantages. It must, therefore, first learn to walk before it can run. This means that it must, among other things, stop exaggerating its capabilities. It also means that its intellectual champions, such as Dr Adebajo, must eschew the cycle of denial and scapegoating that has for far too long stunted the country’s development.

Mills Soko
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town