Court Asks Omokore Firm, Atlantic Energy To Refund $1.6 Bln To NNPC

Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Nigeria Limited, a member of the EnergyResources Group, owned by Chief Jide Omokore is to refund $1.6 billion to the state-owned energy firm NNPC, a court ruling has shown.

Omokore, an allied of a former Petroleum minister Deziani Allison-Madueke has been indicted in various illegal transaction since the advent of President Mohammadu Buhari administration.
According to the chief executive of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru the judgment against Atlantic Energy was one of the recent achievements of the anti-corruption fight of the corporation.
"Recently, we were able to get the Atlantic companies that were fleecing the NNPC subsidiary called NPDC, and we got an award for them to refund $1.6 billion to NPDC through the arbitration process,” Baru said.
“We’ve made a lot of inroads in terms of fraud detection, prevention, and control. The most important thing for the economy and any business is to ensure that fraud does not occur. It is not to allow the fraud to take place and then you start fighting it. So, the prevention aspect of fraud is very key.
“Under the anti-corruption committee, we were able to ensure that all staff members of NNPC and those doing business with the corporation know the correct processes. They also know what constitutes corruption and, of course, they know the punishments that follow," the NNPC chief executive said.
Baru said the NNPC had been able to address some high-profile court cases that were targeted at defrauding the national oil firm.
He cited an instance where the oil firm saved over $350 million after it was able to settle a case which it had with another oil company out of court.
“We’ve also been able to stem some of the high-profile court cases that we believe had been set up to defraud NNPC. And some of these activities are related to fighting corruption. If you see the amount of money involved and if you don’t have people who are determined to fight corruption, the chances are that you will be compromised.
“We’ve had some other cases, for example, NNPC versus IPCO, where they were demanding over $400 million because of their activities. But we were able to settle out of court with them for $37.5m, which is a saving of several percentages and certainly less than 10 percent of the initial demand.
“So, these are activities which the fraud investigation and, of course, forensic investigation are about, in order to ensure that fraud is not there because you will detect it, investigate it and prosecute it so that you get value for money.”