|
New Page 9
NNRA confirms return of stolen
radioactive materials
NIGERIAN
Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) has confirmed the return by Halliburton
Energy Services Nigeria Ltd of two stolen radio-active materials.
Theft of the highly-sensitive materials
incurred earned the company a blacklist by the Federal Government. The firm was
banned from receiving government contracts over the incident.
Speaking with News Agency of Nigeria
(NAN) weekend in Abuja, the NNRA Director-General, Mr. Shamsudeen Elegba,
said the American oil service company had recently brought back the
controversial materials from Houston, Texas.
The radioactive materials disappeared from
Nigeria and were discovered to be in the company’s headquarters in the United
States (U.S).
"The items are now legally under our
control, while the company is physically having them, but we have sealed the
items with special packs that cannot be broken without our consent," Elegba
stated.
He said the agency had conducted various
tests to ascertain integrity of the materials and confirm that they were the
"real ones taken away."
The director-general also said the
materials would not be used by the company for its oil service operations, since
the company had been banned by the federal government because of the incident.
According to him, "only President Olusegun
Obasanjo can lift the ban and by so doing, they can not in any way use the two
items in oil service operations and other business transactions in the country.
Elegba said that the company flouted
national and international nuclear regulations, adding: that was why the
government banned it from conducting business in the country.
NAN reports
that Halliburton was last year indicted by the government over the disappearance
of two radioactive materials in the Niger Delta in 2002.
Halliburton had, in December 2002,
declared that the radioactive materials got lost in transit between Warri and
Port Harcourt.
The hand-held devices are primarily used
to build oil well heads and wells and for X-raying oil pipelines for cracks and
could also be used to make "dirty bombs."
The radioactive materials, which were
earlier exported to Germany were intercepted by German authorities at a steel
recycling plant in Bavaria, Germany.
Nigeria’s request to repatriate the
materials after concluding the case in Germany failed due to that country’s
lukewarm attitude to the request.
The radioactive materials were moved to
the US last January by Halliburton while the NNRA had, in March 2003 suspended
the company from carrying out any activity involving the use, importation,
transport and transfer of a radioactive source in the country until the missing
materials were recovered.
Last September, federal government finally
imposed a ban on any business transaction with Halliburton.
|
