THE House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee investigating $17b undeclared proceeds of crude oil between 2011 and 2014 on Tuesday insisted that the Chief Executives of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) should appear in person or face the wrath of the law.
The committee’s resolution followed the refusal of the CEOs to appear before it to respond to queries on several undeclared payments on crude oil sold during the period under review.
The legal officer’s of the two companies had told the committee that it would be difficult to address the committee on the subject matter because the same issue is a subject of litigation.
Specifically, when Shell’s representative, Funmi Olafimihan was asked to confirm a document containing a list of payments connected her company, she said, “I can neither confirm nor deny the content of this document”.
Olafimihan said that, the Federal government took Shell to court over the same issue which the company has strongly and robustly contested.
Also, Agip’ representative, Joke Aliu told the committee that, the company was also in court with the Federal Government over the same subject matter.
The Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Hon Abdukrazaq Namdas who was not happy with the position of the oil companies said that the reasons given by the two international oil companies were untenable.
He then told their representatives that, the House was constitutionally empowered to investigate and request for information from any person or organization in the country as related to the country’s economy.
According to him, “It is the executive that took you to court not the House of Representatives, as a legislature, we have a responsibility to carry out our own duty. The Federal Government took you to court to recover a shortfall, to compel you to pay what you refused to pay, on the other hand, ours is to uncover corruption, to unravel how and why certain monies were paid into different accounts without proper documentation. Even the periods covered by the two issues were different.
“Being in court does not mean that the National Assembly cannot investigate such matters because the constitution was very clear on that. It is just sad that international oil companies are using Nigerians to subvert our system”, he said.
and then