The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has dismissed allegation that the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline Project was inflated to the tune of $1.527billion, describing it as false, baseless and unfounded.
The corporation’s spokesman Dr Kennie Obateru stated in a release on Monday that the NNPC was considering instituting legal actions against an online medium that published the allegation.
Dr Obateru stated in the release that the corporation brought the unfounded accusation to the attention of the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) which “completely rejected the speculative analysis of the online medium as false and not portraying the true position of the BPP’s report on the subject.”
The release continued: “This is clearly a concocted analysis aimed at attacking the character of the Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, and the integrity of the Bureau of Public Procurements (BPP). Mallam Mele Kyari did not become the GMD until July 2019 and he is being mentioned in a process that took place in 2017 by the account of the publication. This is rather unfortunate and malicious, considering that a further cut of $300million of the contract value was achieved under the Mele Kyari-led NNPC Management leading to the recognition by the Federal Executive Council as an unprecedented action.”
The release explained that BPP, following a detailed review and analysis of the procurement bid, confirmed that the unit costs for line pipes adopted by the NNPC for the project were reasonable when compared with current market prices for 40”, 36”, 20” and 14” steel pipes, adding that it was on that basis that BPP confirmed and granted certificate of no objection dated August 11, 2017.
NNPC stated that the AKK project underwent a transparent and open competitive tender process that resulted in the emergence of the most competitive bidders, wondering how a competitive tender process could be inflated.
“Approval of all relevant authorities were obtained after an intense scrutiny by the various agencies. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead the Nigerian public with baseless information,” the release exclaimed.
NNPC said the AKK pipeline project was one of the key landmark projects that have had transparent processes from inception to date, with the entire evaluation exercise carried out by NNPC and Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).”
