The House of Representatives Adhoc Committee investigating Refined Product Exchange Agreement/Crude Oil Swap by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday formally requested the former minister of petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, to appear before it to clarify her role in the crude oil swap arrangements with oil trading companies.
In the letter of invitation dated Monday, February 22, 2016, signed by the committee’s chairman, Hon. Zakari Mohammed, the invitation of Alison-Madueke became necessary for further clarifications in view of “preponderance of document and evidence at the hearing.”
The panel requested Alison-Madueke to appear before them on Wednesday, March 2, 2016, along with five categories of documents that would assist them in the discharge of their legislative duties.
Diezani is requested to provide the Committee’s Secretariat with 20 copies of each category of the documents requested from her which include a full brief on the Oil Swap Agreement; Presidential/Federal Executive Council’s (FEC’s) Approval and/or NNPC Board’s resolution on the contract.
Others requested documents includes the approved threshold for the minister for petroleum resources, the NNPC Board and the GMD; the minister’s power to extend a contract that had expired and not yet renewed; and any other document that may assist the committee in its assignment.
It should be recalled that the three former group managing directors (GMDs) of the NNPC who had appeared before the committee had absolved themselves of any wrongdoing, attributing the unilateral extension of oil swap deal contracts to the former minister.
The committee had also discovered, in the course of the investigative hearing, that some of the oil trading companies contracted for lifting crude oil under the swap arrangement were actually fake or unregistered.
It is left to be seen whether the embattled Alison-Madueke, who had since moved to London since May 2015 on health grounds, will honour the committee’s invitation.
