Senate Probes 7 Oil Firms Over $21bn Unremitted Funds
The Senate has mandated its Committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Judiciary and Legal Matters and that of Finance to probe seven international oil firms for allegedly failing to remit about $21bn into the national coffers.
It also asked the committees to investigate reasons behind the failure to review the salient provisions of the Production Sharing Contract Act.
The oil firms are Abo (OML 125) – operated by ENI; Agbami-Ekoli (OML 127 and OML 128) – operated by Chevron; Akpo and Egina (OML 130) – operated by Total and South Atlantic Petroleum; Bonga (OML 118) – operated by Shell; Erha (OML 133) – operated by ExxonMobil Okwori and Nda (OML 126) – operated by Addax; and Usan (OML 138) – operated by ExxonMobil.
The senate’s decision was sequel to a motion by the vice chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources, Ifeanyi Ubah, who drew the attention to the IOCs alleged refusal to honour the provisions of the Production Sharing Contracts Act.
He said the federal government had lost about $21bn over a period of 20 years as confirmed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources after a federal cabinet meeting on December 14, 2017. Senate President Ahmad Lawan said Nigeria’s economy would gain significantly if the Act was reviewed and amended.
“The monies can be injected into financing the 2020 Budget. This is one important and patriotic motions we have taken so far in the Ninth Senate.
