The House of Representatives decided to form an ad hoc committee to look into all joint venture activities and production sharing agreements in the petroleum industry since 1990.
Whether or not the capital expenditure, operations, financials, and related structures are within the ambit of law is what the panel is to determine.
Within eight weeks, the committee must submit a report to the House for additional legislative action.
This is based on a resolution put forth by several House members, including Messrs Sergius Ogun, Benjamin Kalu, Sada Soli, Ado Kiri, Isiaka Ibrahim, and Mark Gbillah, which was unanimously approved during Thursday’s plenary.
‘Need to Investigate the Structure and Accountability of the Joint Venture Businesses and Production Sharing Contracts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation from 1990 Till Date’ was the motion’s title.
The sponsors emphasized that Sections 88 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution give the National Assembly the ability to look into how any authority is carrying out or carrying out laws passed by the National Assembly.
The lawmakers also noted that the Escravos Gas-to-Liquid (EGTL) Project is a joint venture between Chevron Nigeria Limited and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited) to build a 34,000 barrels per day Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plant at Escravos, Delta State.
They added that the EGTL project had a total budget of $1.294 billion when it was first planned in 2001. By the time the contract was awarded in 2005, the final approved cost had increased to $2.9 billion, and as of December 31, 2011, it had increased again to $8 billion. By the time the project was completed in 2014, the total cost had reached over $10 billion.
