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**Laments massive loss of jobs
**Violation of local content act
Stakeholders who are mainly young players in the oil and gas sector
have regretted that rather than the hyped benefits that accompanied
the birth of the Total Egina oil field, which included the acceleration of
the pace of Nigeria’s industrial fabric and the transfer of technology,
the oil field has however, made thousands of youths to lose their jobs.
They also alleged that foreign contractors had instigated mind-boggling
corruption in Nigeria similar to the dark legacy of Halliburton by
bribing officials to be awarded multi- billion dollar projects, hence
called on the Federal Government and the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam its searchlight on the activities of
the major players adding that massive corruption perpetrated by
foreign companies with support from their compromised local allies,
mortgaging the future of the youths in deference to the Local Content
Act, must not be swept under the carpet.
In a press statement supported with relevant documents and signed by
Chairman, Nigerian Young Professionals Forum (NYPF), Moses Siloko
Siasia, Chief Executive of Connected Development (CODE), Hamzat
Lawal, Pioneer Chairperson of Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC), Dr.
Ahmed Adamu and other Civil Society Groups, they stated that in June,
2013, NNPC awarded the contract for the EPC to build the Egina FPSO
to Samsung Heavy Industries. This was despite the fact that Hyundai
Heavy Industries was recommended by Total for the job and was the
lowest bidder. According to them, immediately after the award and
throughout the project, there has been outcry from stakeholders
ranging from interest groups to legal challenges in court.
The stakeholders however, urged the Nigerian Government to stop
shielding criminals from justice and conclude the investigation they had
started by exposing their illegalities.
The statement reads in parts: “The Egina oil field has resulted into
massive job losses for Nigerian youths. We also have it in good
authority that Samsung has fraudulently acquired contract award to
collect hundreds of millions of variation (20% of the contract value)
with no local content in it.
“The youth has decided that Nigeria can never be developed if foreign
instigators of corruption are allowed to go free. Samsung’s current
attempt to advocate for new variations will be stopped.
“The company must immediately be sent out of Nigeria and banned
from participating in future projects.” They added that for the past five
years, there have been investigations into the irregular manner in
which Samsung won the contract by several anti-corruption agencies
and yet the findings were not published.
“The full finding of these investigations has not been published but it is
widely believed that Samsung paid bribes in the region of over 50
million Dollars to win the contract.”
The group also said they are mobilising other interest groups to move
to submit a detailed petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) and National Assembly on Tuesday 28 th August 2018
at 10am.
