Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has shrugged off any suggestion that he approved contracts awarded by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) while acting for President Muhammadu Buhari.
Cornered by journalists after the ground-breaking of the multi-billion Naira Bonny-Bodo road project in Bonny, Rivers State, Osinbajo explained 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.
Said he: “These were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that had to procure. 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.
He continued: “Earlier today, I had tweeted on the same matter thus:
In response to media inquiries on the NNPC Joint Venture financing arrangements, VP Osinbajo, as Acting President, 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.”