Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has explained that the approvals he granted to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) while he was acting President were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the corporation and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
Osinbajo made the clarification to journalists on Thursday after the ground-breaking multi-billion naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State, saying that he only approved two loans for the NNPC.
According to him, “They were financing loans, joint venture loans, that have procured so in some cases NNPC ventures have to secure loans and they need the authorization to secure those loans, he clarified.
“While the President was away, I granted authorization which is what the law provides.
“The law actually provides for that authorization, so I did grant all of those, in fact, there were two of them but those are presidential approvals but they are specifically for financing joint ventures and they are Loans not Contracts.”
Osinbajo’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande had earlier said that the Vice President approved contracts for NNPC after due diligence when he acted as President when President Muhammadu Buhari was away in the United Kingdom.
Akande had tweeted: “In response to media inquiries on NNPC joint venture financing, VP Osinbajo, as Ag President approved recommendations after due diligence & adherence to established procedure.
“Action necessary to deal with huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which Buhari administration inherited and also to incentivise much needed fresh investments in the oil & gas sector.”
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