House to Probe Acquisition of OVH Energy by NNPCL

*To recover seized, abandoned funds in financial institutions

 Juliet Akoje in Abuja.

The House of Representatives has setup an Ad hoc committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of OVH Energy by the NNPC Limited and report back to it within four weeks for further legislative action.

The lawmakers also urged the NNPC Limited to immediately suspend the acquisition of OVH Energy Marketing and the proposed relocation of the NNPC Retail Head office from Abuja to Lagos, pending the outcome of the investigation.

The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion moved by Hon. Miriam Onuoha, Hon. Dabo Ismal Haruna, Hon. Mark Chidi Obeto, Hon. Abdullahi Aliyu, Hon. Sadiq Ango, Hon. Aliyu Gara, Hon. Clement Akan during plenary yesterday.
Onuoha, while presenting the motion noted that the NNPC Retail is a subsidiary of NNPC Limited saddled with the responsibility of retailing fuel and allied products to the Nigerian populace, with about 700 company owned stations and affiliates across all states.

She recalled that, “the recent enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act, NNPC Limited was commercialised and expected to fund its operations. To achieve this feat, NNPC Limited deployed a plan to grow the assets of NNPC Retail Limited (NRL) which included the acquisition of other downstream companies.”

“Cognizant that in every acquisition, if a firm buys more than 50 per cent of a target company’s shares, it effectively gains control of that company but in this case. it appears that the NNPC has taken over OVH Energy but in operational terms, it is OWH Energy that has taken over the affairs of NNPC Retail.

“Also cognisant of the need to ensure transparency by addressing these irregularities and nefarious activities to take over the NNPC Retail by interested parties at a critical time in the Nigerian energy sector given the overhaul of the petroleum laws, the removal of fuel subsidy and in particular the deliberate efforts to curb corruption in the energy sector,” she added.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday, resolved to constitute an Ad-hoc Committee to identify, recover public funds seized, forfeited and abandoned in financial institutions and Government Agencies.
The committee is also to appraise the federal government’s current policy framework, to ascertain who authorises the seizures, who keeps the seized funds and for what duration.

The House also has demanded for the statement of account for a period covering ten years, proffer measures to curb revenue losses and identify, analyse all funds trapped in other banks, funds recovered so far by the CBN, the EFCC, NFIU and other agencies and report back within four weeks.

These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion moved by Hon. Dachung M. Bagos at plenary, yesterday.