Mohammed Shosanya and Chidi Ugwu
Lagos /Abuja – The
Federal Government has assured Nigerian workers that it had no plans or
agenda to sell any of the nation’s refineries or the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Federal Government said anybody
who was nursing plans to sell the assets does not have the interest of
Nigerian workers at heart.
Speaking at the 12th Quadrennial
National Delegates Conference of the NLC in Abuja, on Tuesday, President
Muhammadu Buhari, who was represented by the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, said government was
determined to attain the decent work agenda, which involves
opportunities for workers, saying it will deliver a fair income,
security at work places, and social protection for families.
“I
want to reassure you of the commitment of this administration to the
issue of welfare of workers. This is evidence of numerous programmes and
policies that have been initiated by this administration in promoting
the interest of the wellbeing of our workforce.
“Meanwhile, the administration is committed to addressing other labour issues that are still pending,” Mustapha said.
In
the meantime, the NLC has called for reversal of the power sector
privatisation due to what it called chronic failures by the distribution
companies (DisCos) to deliver quality power supply to Nigerians.
National
President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said: “Since the privatisation
of electricity distribution, Nigerians are yet to see the fulfilment of
promises of efficient service delivery.
“Instead, the electricity
situation has gone worse with chronic failures by DisCos to supply
prepaid meters, exploitation of Nigerians through estimated billings and
reluctance to attend to basic complaints.
“Even with N39 billion
bailout funds from government, the supposed private entrepreneurs have
failed to turn anything around except, maybe, their pockets,
unfortunately, at the expense of Nigerians. This must stop.
“We call on government to reverse the power sector privatisation because it has failed.
“Privatisation
of public utilities has not generally proven to be the correct thing to
do in most countries, even developed ones, according to a study
released by Public Services International.”
He urged the Federal Government to resuscitate Nigeria’s ailing refineries in order to liberate the downstream sector.
Malabu: JPMorgan Asks UK Court To Stop $875m FG’s Suit
In
another development, JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday asked a London
court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Nigerian government that
accuses the bank of failing to prevent $875 million in corrupt payments.
The
global company insists it got the correct approvals from Nigerian
officials before transferring the funds to accounts controlled by a
former oil minister, Dan Etete, who has been convicted of money
laundering, and that the government’s claim has no real prospect of
success.
The Federal Government had last year filed a claim
against JPMorgan Chase for more than $875 million, accusing it of
negligence in transferring funds from a disputed 2011 oilfield deal to a
company controlled by the former oil minister.
Independent Newspapers Nigeria
We Won’t Sell NNPC, Refineries, FG Assures
HomepageNews
Subscribe to updates
Mohammed Shosanya and Chidi Ugwu
Lagos
/Abuja – The Federal Government has assured Nigerian workers that it
had no plans or agenda to sell any of the nation’s refineries or the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Federal
Government said anybody who was nursing plans to sell the assets does
not have the interest of Nigerian workers at heart.
Speaking at
the 12th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the NLC in Abuja,
on Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari, who was represented by the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, said
government was determined to attain the decent work agenda, which
involves opportunities for workers, saying it will deliver a fair
income, security at work places, and social protection for families.
“I
want to reassure you of the commitment of this administration to the
issue of welfare of workers. This is evidence of numerous programmes and
policies that have been initiated by this administration in promoting
the interest of the wellbeing of our workforce.
“Meanwhile, the administration is committed to addressing other labour issues that are still pending,” Mustapha said.
In
the meantime, the NLC has called for reversal of the power sector
privatisation due to what it called chronic failures by the distribution
companies (DisCos) to deliver quality power supply to Nigerians.
National
President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said: “Since the privatisation
of electricity distribution, Nigerians are yet to see the fulfilment of
promises of efficient service delivery.
“Instead, the electricity
situation has gone worse with chronic failures by DisCos to supply
prepaid meters, exploitation of Nigerians through estimated billings and
reluctance to attend to basic complaints.
“Even with N39 billion
bailout funds from government, the supposed private entrepreneurs have
failed to turn anything around except, maybe, their pockets,
unfortunately, at the expense of Nigerians. This must stop.
“We call on government to reverse the power sector privatisation because it has failed.
“Privatisation
of public utilities has not generally proven to be the correct thing to
do in most countries, even developed ones, according to a study
released by Public Services International.”
He urged the Federal Government to resuscitate Nigeria’s ailing refineries in order to liberate the downstream sector.
Malabu: JPMorgan Asks UK Court To Stop $875m FG’s Suit
In
another development, JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday asked a London
court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Nigerian government that
accuses the bank of failing to prevent $875 million in corrupt payments.
The
global company insists it got the correct approvals from Nigerian
officials before transferring the funds to accounts controlled by a
former oil minister, Dan Etete, who has been convicted of money
laundering, and that the government’s claim has no real prospect of
success.
The Federal Government had last year filed a claim
against JPMorgan Chase for more than $875 million, accusing it of
negligence in transferring funds from a disputed 2011 oilfield deal to a
company controlled by the former oil minister.
Related Post
Lanre Adisa Is Heritage Jury President
The Managing Director of Noah’s Ark, Lanre Adisa, has been announced as the Jury President…
Oshiomhole Tasks New Edo APC Exco On Buhari’s Re-Election
Benin – Former Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has tasked the newly-elected officials of the…
The
suit filed in British courts relates to a purchase of the offshore OPL
245 oilfield in Nigeria by oil majors, Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in
2011. At the core of the case is a $1.3 billion payment from Shell and
Eni to secure the block that the lawsuit says was deposited into a
Nigerian government escrow account managed by JPMorgan.
The suit
said JPMorgan then received a request from finance ministry workers to
transfer more than $800 million of the funds to accounts controlled by
the previous operator of the block, Malabu Oil and Gas, itself
controlled by former oil minister, Dan Etete.
It added that
JPMorgan then transferred the funds to two accounts controlled by Etete,
without sufficient due diligence to make sure the money did not leave
accounts controlled by the Nigerian government.
But the Federal
Government says that JPMorgan acted with gross negligence by allowing
the transfer of the money without further checks.
It said JPMorgan should have known that, under Nigerian law, the money should never have been transferred to an outside company.
“If
the defendant acted with reasonable care and skill and/or conducted
reasonable due diligence it would or should have known or at least
suspected that it was being asked to transfer funds to third parties who
were seeking to misappropriate the funds from the claimant and/or that
there was a significant risk that this was the case,” the filing said.
Last
year, a Milan judge ruled that Shell and Eni must stand trial in Italy,
where Eni is headquartered, for a separate legal case in which Milan
prosecutors allege bribes were paid to Etete and others as part of the
same oilfield deal, including sums that went to Etete’s Malabu.
Both
Eni and Shell denied any wrongdoing in relation to that case. There are
also ongoing investigations regarding the deal in Nigeria and the
Netherlands, where Shell is based.
The licence for the offshore
block was awarded to Malabu in 1998 under then-Head of State Sani
Abacha, but Shell finalised a deal for the block with the Nigerian
government in 2011. A British court, in a judgment late last year that
agreed to return to Nigeria $85 million in frozen funds related to the
deal, said that Malabu was controlled by Etete.
Meanwhile, the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Tuesday said a total
of 735 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mscfd) was delivered
to gas fired-power plants in November 2018 compared with October 2018
where an average of 627mscfd was supplied.
Details of the report
contained in the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report for the
month of November 2018 showed that out of the 212.93 billion cubic feet
(bcf) of gas supplied during the period, a total of 123.29bcf of gas was
commercialised, consisting of 36.14bcf and 87.15bcf for domestic and
export markets, respectively.
The report said this translated to a
total supply of 1,204.76mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and
2,905.06mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month,
implying that 57.91% of the average daily gas produced was
commercialised while the balance of 42.09% was re-injected, used as
upstream fuel gas or flared.
The total gas supply in November
2017 to November 2018 stood at 3,071.13bcf out of which 466.44bcf and
1,317.77bcf were commercialised for the domestic and export markets,
respectively.
A further breakdown of the report indicated that gas – injected, fuel gas and gas flared – stood at 1,286.92bcf.
The
November report, the 40th edition in the series, announced a trading
surplus of N2.06 billion which represented a laudable improvement of
116% over the previous month’s deficit of 12.66 billion. This increase
in performance month-on-month was primarily attributable to improved
efficiency of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company’s (NPDC)
operations.
NNPC also posted a total crude oil and gas sale of
$668.57 in November 2018 which is 26.13% higher than the previous month.
Crude oil export sales contributed $574.95 million (86.00%) of the
dollar transactions compared with $425.00 million contribution in the
previous month.
The November 2017 to November 2018 crude oil and
gas transactions indicated that crude oil & gas worth $5.97 billion
was exported.
Source:- Independentng
Share your thoughts