Officials Of Nigerian Petroleum Services Agency, NAPIMS Accused Of Fraud, Unethical Conduct In Contracts Bidding Process

Fresh facts have emerged on how cases of sharp practices, corruption and unethical moves by officials of the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) caused the breakdown of law and order between host communities in Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa States and the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC.

A transparency group with membership in the six states of the Niger Delta region, the Niger Delta Youths for Transparent and Accountability Watch Dog, for example, obtained documents surrounding the bidding for the Government Security Agencies (GSA) CW 502377.

The group examined the bidding process and discovered that the bidding being supervised by NAPIMS was a sham with officials getting involved with alleged cronies and fake companies to manipulate pricing and they did not possess the technical know-how needed to operate in the region.

It was further revealed that due to their participation in the bidding, the transparency group discovered that despite the companies within and outside of the region bidding, “the bidding has been compromised by officials of NAPIMS with a view of frustrating the good and noble intentions of protecting and providing logistics support services for the Government security Agencies (GSA) within the Oil and Gas pipeline within the Niger Delta geographical locations.

According to the source, “some of the accused officials of NAPIMS went ahead to expose the terms of the contract and bid lower prices with the intention of winning the contract by every means possible without any form of technical and human capacity in their profile. They are desperately trying to undermine the security profile and architecture of the oil and gas pipeline within the region.”

It was learnt that the Indigenous communities, whose indigenes have handled the GSA contracts for years without blemishes, are battle ready with SPDC over its mischievous and suspicious moves to terminate the contract which is a means of livelihood to the host communities.

SaharaReporters gathered that despite the intervention of the umbrella body of the Ijaw Youths Worldwide, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Limited (NNPL) and the re-affirmation of the Rivers State High Court order stopping the SPDC from terminating the contract, they seemed to be heading for a collision course with the host communities.

The Ijaw Youths Council Worldwide had last month threatened to disrupt the exploration activities of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in the Eastern and Western region of operations over the allege violation of Nigerian content laws and the deprivation of host communities and local contractors in terms of oil and gas sector jobs, businesses and placements by multinational oil companies operating in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States.

The National Spokesman of the IYC, Ebilade Ekerefe, told newsmen in Yenagoa, that despite the intervention of senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), officials of the SPDC terminated jobs meant for indigenous contractors, saying the contracts ought to be awarded to local contractors, in the Niger Delta Region.

According to Ebilade Ekerefe, local contractors from the Niger Delta Region have met all value procurement requirements by the certifying bodies in the country to qualify to be awarded such contracts and be gainfully employed in those fields, expressing regret at the actions of the SPDC and other oil multinationals operating in the region.

Investigation however revealed that the proposed termination of the GSA contract arose following the failure of the SPDC and some senior officials to launch investigation into the processes of award, cost and scope of the contract which reportedly indicted lots of officials of the SPDC and associates in the oil and gas industry.

Also discovered, according to competent sources, were the deliberate attempt by those involved in the planned hijack of the contract to exclude the ordered investigation to examine their technical capacity and allow the Military intelligence unit to screen their purported qualification to handle the contract.

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC),who have allegedly feign ignorance on the development, stated in a statement issued and signs by the Media Relations Manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson, stated that “The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited Joint Venture (SPDC JV) is committed to the development of businesses in the Niger Delta. Working with government and community stakeholders, we have supported capacity development in several Niger Delta-owned businesses.”

“The case in hand is a scheduled review of our logistics contracting process that has been in place for years. The review, supervised by the NNPC Upstream Investments Management Services (NUIMS), and the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB), was conducted via an open and transparent bidding process which resulted in the entrance of several new contractors. The bid winners comprised of some of these new companies, as well as companies previously involved in the contract. All the bid winners, which are Nigerian companies, demonstrated their commercial and technical competence as well as compliance with Nigerian Content regulations”.

“Shell’s Nigerian businesses will continue to support the development of local communities and companies. In 2022, the SPDC JV, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) and Shell Nigeria Gas (SNG) awarded contracts worth $1.9 billion to Nigerian-registered companies. Additionally, in 2022, the SPDC JV, SNEPCo and SNG invested $5.6 million in education programmes and contributed $34.29 million in direct social investment.

Social investment was mainly in projects related to community, health, education, road safety and enterprise programmes. These projects are often implemented in partnership with local authorities and contractors.”

“In addition, $56.13 million has been earmarked to be paid in 2023 by the SPDC JV and SNEPCo for a statutory contribution to Host Communities Development Trusts (HCDTs), which will benefit Nigerian communities. The SPDC JV is transitioning from its existing global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) agreements to the HCDTs in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021.”