Oil Bunkering: Navy Liable for Missing Vessel - SSS
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja
The State Security Service yesterday told the House of Representatives Committee investigating the disappearance of an oil bunkering vessel, "M. T. African Pride" that the navy and not the police should be held responsible for the missing vessel.
Sources at the Committee hearing told THISDAY that Director General of the Service, Mr. Kayode Are, who testified behind closed doors told the lawmakers that he agreed with the police that it was the navy that should be held accountable for the missing ship as the police lacked the requisite capacity to keep custody of the vessel on the high sea.
He also confirmed that the name under which the ship operated may have been fake as more than one vessel has been seen with the same name, pointing out that even recently in Calabar, a ship with the same name was sighted.
Are's testimony came as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Engineer Funso Kupolokun, confirmed that a total of eight vessels were arrested, with 11,950 cubic meters of crude oil. He said M.T. African Pride alone had 15,000 metric tones of crude.
According to him, the NNPC took delivery of the crude oil, which was later reported missing.
Kupolokun said the crude recovered from the vessels were contaminated and having tried to sell it at reasonable prices to interested buyers without success, NNPC had to sell the product to Duke oil, its only subsidiary.
He specifically gave the quantity of crude oil recovered from the M. T. African Pride which has since disappeared as 6,499 cubic meters which cost he refused to disclose.
Kupolokun said the recovery of stolen crude from arrested ships was on-going and had been on before the January 29 date when President Olusegun Obasanjo in a meeting in Aso Rock, directed that the Navy transfer the vessels and suspects on board to the police for investigation and prosecution.
Asked what quantity of oil the Navy reported to the NNPC was arrested with the ship, Kupolokun said the quantity was not stated but insisted that what his inspectors removed from the vessel was 15,000 metric tones of crude which had already been sold to its subsidiary.
On the possibility of his staff conniving to under assess the crude recovered from the vessels as "contaminated", he said he did not see any incentive on the part of his staff to indulge in such act, pointing out that in selling the crude to NNPC there was no room for such conspiracy.
Kupolokun further told the panel that money realised from the sale of the seized crude oil was paid into the Federation Account, adding that the payment was well documented.
According to him, the "M. T. African Pride" arrested with the crude oil was not the same one that brought petroleum products into the country and was registered in Panama.
He noted that there has been drastic reduction in the volume of crude oil lost to bunkering from the 197,000 barrels per day record in 2002 to between 30,000 to 50,000 barrels per day.
However, other sources told THISDAY that the said ship which slipped out of the country without trace under questionable circumstances has been sold and that the possibility of tracing and getting any tangible thing about it was remote due to the caliber of people involved in the bunkering deal.
Already, the Navy has court martialled some of its officers alleged to have sidetracked the chain of command of the force to deal with the situation.
Yesterday's hearing according to the Committee Chairman on Navy, Hon Mike Aziegbemi, marked the conclusion of the first phase of the investigation. The committee's report on the investigation is expected Thursday next week.
Already, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Sunday Afolayan, had blamed the police for the missing vessel.
When the Inspector General of Police appeared, he denied knowledge of vessel and challenged the Naval Chief to produce evidence of handing over the vessel to his force.
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