A civic technology organisation, BudgIT, has called for the removal of discretionary powers to award petroleum licenses from a sitting President as contained in the Petroleum Industry Administrative Bill (PIAB).
The organisation said the opportunity to arbitrarily award petroleum licenses led to the infamous Malabu (OPL 245) scandal.
BudgITโs Principal Lead, Gabriel Okeowo, advised the Federal Government to remove from the PIAB the clause giving any sitting President the right to award licenses outside the established regulatory framework.
Okeowo, in a statement issued by BudgITโs Communication Lead, Ayomide Faleye, in Abuja on Wednesday, said this would go a long way in preventing the recurrence of the Malabu saga.
The statement reads: โWe are worried that the President can still award petroleum licenses discretionarily. Section 8, Sub-section 7 of the same bill states that โThe President may direct the Commission to negotiate and award petroleum licenses to qualified investors outside of the bidding process. Any such awards may only be for strategic and bilateral purposes.โ
โWhy must the President be able to discretionarily award licenses outside the bidding process? For us at BudgIT, we advise the government to remove from the PIAB the clause giving any sitting President the right to award licenses outside the established regulatory framework, this will go a long way in preventing the recurrence of the Malabu saga.
โThe opportunity to arbitrarily award petroleum licenses led to the infamous Malabu (OPL 245) scandal. It can be recalled that Mr. Dan Etete who was the Minister of Petroleum during Sani Abachaโs military regime, awarded the prospecting rights to the huge OPL 245 block to Malabu Oil and Gas, a shell company in which Mr Etete secretly held a significant stake. Malabu paid only $2m of the required $20m signature bonus, and Abacha died five days after.
โThe Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR has also admitted that no due diligence was carried out before the awarding of OPL 245 to Malabu Oil and Gas in 1998. This oil block which is considered to be the richest in Africa, is estimated to contain about 9 billion barrels of crude.
โMalabu is an example of cronyism and corruption that sees senior government officialsโ gift of oil blocks and other publicly-owned assets to self, friends or well-wishers.
โThe Petroleum Industry Bill is meant to build strong institutions that also allow transparent and fair allocation of oil blocks.โ
He advised the government to critically look into the proposed PIAB before it is finally passed into law.
Okeowo hailed Section 8; Sub-section 2 of the Bill which recommended that โpetroleum licenses shall be awarded through an open, transparent and competitive bidding process conducted by the Commission pursuant to this Act.โ
The statement added: โThis is a welcome idea which means awarding of petroleum licenses will be free and fair enough for everybody.
