by Akan Ido

Capital Oil and Gas, one of the companies indicted by the Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments headed by Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, has described the reports of the committee as “very shoddy”.

The management of the company in a statement released to newsmen yesterday expressed surprise that the committee found it culpable in spite of indisputable documents it produced evidencing the purchase, payment, sailing and discharge of cargoes utilised in the importation of fuel into the country.

The statement read in part:

We are at loss as to how the committee arrived at such an unbelievable and hasty conclusion when there is a clear evidence of bank funding of the transaction beginning with the opening of Form “M” approved by government appointed agent- COTECNA,  establishment of Letter of Credit, appointment of an inspection agent by the bank to monitor all operations from loading of the product from the mother vessel to the discharge at the jetty and also the monitoring of the truck-out from our depot of same product.

“This operation is in total compliance with the government policy and laid down procedures on petroleum product importation. We also affirm that Notice of Readiness (NOR) was tendered to PPRA and DPR prior to the loading from mother vessel and subsequent Notice of Arrival (NOA) was tendered to PPPRA and DPR prior to berthing of the vessel in our jetty. These government agencies were notified and were also present at the discharge of the said products.

“They include: the PPPRA, DPR, Nigerian Customs Service, Nigerian Immigration Service, NIMASA, Nigerian Ports Authority, bank surveyors, and external auditors. It is pertinent to state clearly that all the above bodies witnessed every process of transactions and all the necessary documents relating to these transactions were tendered to the committee and yet the committee could not confirm or fault any of the documents so tendered.”

The statement continued saying,

“In view of this, it is clear that the committee was on a deliberate mission to impugn our hard-earned integrity, embarrass us and offend our sensitivity with a view to inflicting grave damage to our strong standing in the industry.  We also wish to state that the instrument of information used by the committee is not accurate as suggested by our supplier, Vitol SA in a letter dated July 12, 2012. Again there was no prior notice to marketers to subscribe to Lloyd’s monitoring, rather the emphasis to oil marketers was on making sure that products arrived shore tanks, discharged accurately and truck -out/sales proceeds confirmed.”

“Based on the above stated process, which these transactions were subject to, it still baffles us as to how the committee came up with this indefensible report against our company.”.

A season of denials.