Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo on Thursday clarified
that what he approved for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation when
President Muhammadu Buhari was away on medical vacation were financing loans
and not contracts.
According
to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr.
Laolu Akande, the Vice-President made the clarification while answering
reporters’ questions after the ground-breaking of the multi-billion naira
Bonny-Bodo Road project, in Bonny, Rivers State.
Akande
quoted Osinbajo as explaining that the approvals he granted to the NNPC while
he was Acting President were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures
between the corporation and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
“These
were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are,
with the lOCs, like Chevron, that had to procure.
“In
some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners have to secure loans and they
need authorisation to secure those loans while the President was away.
“The
law actually provides for those authorisations. So I did grant two of them and
those were presidential approvals, but they are specifically
for financing joint ventures and they are loans not contracts,” Akande
quoted the Vice-President as saying.
Source: punchng.com
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