Kachikwu, Reps Clash Over Oil Swap Deals

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, on Tuesday, disagreed with members of the House of Representatives over the controversial crude oil for refined products exchange contracts between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and some trading firms.

The bone of contention was his refusal to answer questions regarding the deals, which was signed before he became the Group Managing Director of the NNPC. The contracts, which ran between 2010 and 2014, were worth over $24bn in value.

Kachikwu was invited by the ad hoc committee of the House chaired by an All Progressives Congress lawmaker from Kwara State, Zakari Mohammed, which is looking into the deals.

The swap contracts involved the exchange of crude oil for refined petroleum products in which the corporation gave out part of its 445,000 barrels per day share crude allocation to the trading companies.

Kachikwu said he knew nothing about the deals, especially how the bidding process went, how the swap arrangement benefited Nigeria as against the direct importation of refined petroleum products, but this angered the lawmakers.

“The lawyer in you keeps coming to the surface in answering these questions, but we are talking to you in your capacity as a minister and the GMD of the NNPC. You have to help this committee,” Mohammed told the Minister.

“You need to take more responsibility; it is your job. You are the GMD and also the minister. You must have met and studied some files, these things did not happen in 1970, but just 2014,” Another member, Saheed Fijabi, fumed.

Kachikwu later explained that, “When I assumed duty as the GMD of the NNPC, I met the Offshore Processing Arrangement and like you know, there is always room for improvement. I and my team came up with the DSDP initiative with the aim of throwing open the bidding process.

“This initiative has brought transparency into the crude-for-product exchange matrix and it is in tandem with global best practices.”