OSIBANJO SAYS HE GRANTED NNPC APPROVAL FOR FINANCING JOINT VENTURES AND NOT CONTRACTS

 
Vice President Yomi Osinbajo has said the approvals he granted to the NNPC  while  serving as Acting President were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the corporation and IOCs.They were  not approvals for contracts, the Vice President declared Thursday.
Osinbajo made the clarification  when he was approached by reporters after the ground-breaking multi-billion Naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State. 
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 authorisation to secure those loans while the President was away. The law actually provides for those authorisations. 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.
Earlier on Thursday, Osinbajo’s media aide, Laolu Akande,  set off the online media storm when  tweeted on the same matter.
Akande said: “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.”
This was swiftly reported to mean that the VP approved the contracts,an impression he has denied.
But the row between Minister of State Petroleum Resources,Ibe Kachikwu and the GMD NNPC which  ignited the issue of approvals for contracts or lack of it, is apparently not over yet .