Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday met behind closed doors on oil upstream issues involving the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru.
Kachikwu, in a leaked letter to President Muhammadu Buhari had accused Baru of awarding $25 billion contracts without following due process.
Speaking with State House correspondences after the meeting, Kachikwu said: โIts a meeting on upstream meeting, a normal typical meeting.
It was largely AGIP bringing some information to the Vice President on where they have been in terms of Okpai, in terms of Zabazaba Deepwater oilfield, in terms of the cash call exit which they are doing with NNPC, basically updating him, asking for areas where they need some assistance from government officials to sort of fastrack. It was normal upstream meeting.
Asked if the GMD was part of the meeting, Kachikwu said โDefinitely, of course.โ
On the extent the issue of cash call was discussed, he said โYes we did only to the extent that a few completion items on NNPC, largely the opening up of the escrow accounts and that type of stuff which they need to fasten up on.
โBut we are far gone on that, instalmental payments are already going on, I think NNPC is undertaking by October or early next month to complete that whole process. So it is going on very well.
Asked if petrol price will come down before Christmas because of improvement of revenue, he said โI will like the GDM who does the commercial aspect to comment on that, I will need his position before I can even comment on that.โ
