The reckless management of oil revenue funds by Chief Godswill Akpabio’s administration in Akwa Ibom has continued with the recent award of an N18.05 billion contract to Messrs ALCON Nigeria Limited for the construction of the international terminal of the Ibom International Airport.
SaharaReporters checks has however uncovered a pattern of awarding high ticket contracts to portfolio investors at Septa Energy and the connection with ALCON, an Italian company that reportedly fronts for Akpabio in the looting of Akwa Ibom treasury.
Our investigations have also established a link between Septa Energy, ALCON and Governor Akpabio in the shady deals involving the building a gas plant to supply gas to the 190 Mega Watt Ibom power plant funded by Akwa Ibom power plant.
Under the guise of bringing foreign investors to develop the gas reserves in Akwa Ibom, Akpabio struck a deal with Septa Energy to front for his personal business interests.
Akwa Ibom government advanced a whopping $33 million dollars for supply of gas to the State run power plant at a time that construction of the proposed gas plant was still at the site-clearing stages. Septa reportedly deployed the $33 million into the construction of a 66-kilometer gas pipeline from Esit Eket to Ikot Abasi.
This is particularly curious, as Septa Energy is a start up venture without any operational experience in oil and gas except to controversial equity in an oil block with NNPC awarded recently by oil resources minister, Deziani Allison Madueke.
In 2010, Seven Energy entered into an agreement with the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a division of NNPC, to provide technical support and development funding for NPDC’s interests in oil mining licenses (OMLs) 4, 38 and 41. The contract was a subject of investigation by the Nigerian senate, but senators quietly dropped the investigations as money exchanged hands.
Although the management of Septa energy claims to be undertaking projects valued at over $1 billion dollars, it was discovered that the company was operating on venture capital pooled together from several sources.
Septa recently announced securing an additional $225 million funding for gas development projects in the Niger Delta from local and foreign banks.
The construction of the Gas processing plant in Esit Eket valued at $500 million is also being handled by ALCON, the same firm which got the $18 million airport terminal project from the Akwa Ibom government.
Observers say the established links in the companies indicate that they are merely a vehicle to siphon public funds in the name of bringing investors into the state.
Effiong Ikpe, a community activist told SaharaReporters, “I have never seen it happen anywhere that before you even start building a plant, you pay in advance for a product yet to be produced and your money is used to build the pipeline that would carry the gas. And yet you create the impression that you brought the investors while using public funds as capital for a private firm.”
He continued: “It is a very strange arrangement, what happens if the gas plant fails to take off? Did any one bother to ask these questions especially when an oil company lost over $50 million at the Uquo marginal field only to discover that crude oil is not in commercial quantities. So if for any reason the gas reserves are not enough for the company to break even? Then public funds will go down the drains; this is obviously not business.”
The contract award process in Akwa Ibom is shrouded in secrecy and lacks the competitiveness and transparency required in the public procurement process
Source: Saharareporters
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