The Nigerian government said it has no plans to sell Nigerian Liquefied and Natural Gas Limited as being alleged in some quarters. The revelation came at an investigative hearing where the House committee on Gas Resources took to task the Petroleum Ministry and NNPC over a variation of 1.15 billion dollars in the upgrade of contract OML 58 and the
execution of the Northern option pipeline.
National Assembly Correspondent Joke Adisa reports that three motions are under the spotlight of these lawmakers whose main assignment is to ascertain whether or not due process was adhered to in the award of some contracts.
In his opening remarks, Speaker Yakubu Dogara harps on the essence of the investigative exercise.
One of the tasks at hand is a motion on the need to stop the sale of the NLNG, but the Petroleum Minister, Ibe Kachikwu, here represented, denies the alleged plot to sell the company.
The committee then opened invesstigations into the contract for the upgrade of OML 58 Uograde 1, the execution of Obite/Ubeta/Rumuji Pipeline and the Northern option Pipeline Project.
Petroleum Resources Ministry., NNPC and TOTAL E&P as partners in the Joint Venture rendered accounts of their involvement in the deal.
In spite of the elaborate explanations presented,, the legislators were not impressed and even declined the submissions of both government bodies due to irregularities in their presentation.
The representative from TOTAL came under a barrage of questions as he tried to explain how the 3.45 billion dollar contract in 2008 rose to 4.6 billion dollars
Meanwhile, the committee has directed NNPC and TOTAL to provide the sub contractors whose addresses it could not locate.
