Nigerian investigators have found evidence that oil exploration licences that should have brought in $120-million in revenue, were illegally awarded in 2006, newspapers reported Thursday.
A parliamentary hearing heard how the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) was authorised by president Olusegun Obasanjo, who was also oil minister, to sell 11 exploration blocks in a series of auctions in 2006, but actually sold 19, the reports said.
The DPR is responsible for allocating exploration blocks through an auction system.
The signature bonuses on the eight blocks would have brought more than $120-million into state coffers, a senior DPR official, Abiola Ibikunle, was quoted as saying by the Punch newspaper.
In April, Parliament launched an investigation into the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries and sister companies between 1999 and 2007 when Obasanjo was in power.
One key part of the investigation is the way oil-block bids were organised.
President Umaru Yar’Adua, who succeeded Obasanjo in May 2007, has vowed to reform the country’s multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry, which is ridden with mismanagement and corruption.
In June, DPR director Tony Chukwueke was asked to go on leave pending an audit of the 2007 oil bid round improvised on the eve of Obasanjo’s stepping down.
Chukwueke was also suspended for several weeks in 2006 and then re-instated, although no official reason was given for the move. – AFP