The federal government says the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to private contractors was “the right decision”.
Mele Kyari, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has explained that the controversial
multi-billion naira contract for the protection of oil pipelines in Niger Delta
was not awarded to Government Ekpemupolo also known as Tompolo as a person but
to a company he has interests in.
Kyari who was reacting to questions from journalists during
the weekly Ministerial Briefing, hosted by the Presidential Communication Team
at the Presidential Villa defended the decision of Federal Government to hire
private contractors to man its oil pipeline network nationwide.
According to him, end-to-end pipeline surveillance would
require the involvement of private entities and community stakeholders in
addition to the use of security operatives.
“What we did is to do three things. First, to ensure the
government’s security agencies play their part, we have our Navy, the Army and
are doing an excellent job of containing this, but as you do this sustenance is
everything and therefore we also decided that we need private contractors to
man the right of way and also operate outside the right of way so that they can
also join us to manage members of the community
“We don’t have access to that and therefore, we put up a
framework where contractors were selected through a tender process for people
who can do it, not everyone can do it and Tompolo is just mentioned, we’re
dealing with corporate entities.
“He may have interest in the company, we’re not dealing with
Tompolo, but we know that he has interests in that company. We know that we’re
engaging all other individuals who will be of help to us in this situation.
This has happened severally over time and the end result was that it was
contained under a process like this and we believe that we are taking the right
decision,” he explained.