From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has called on Nigerian authorities to investigate and hold public officials accountable for accepting nearly $80 million in bribes from Glencore, a mining and commodity trading company.
November, last year, the United Kingdom subsidiary of mining and commodity trading group, Glencore, was asked by a London court to pay £281 million in fines, confiscated profit and as a sanction for its part in seven bribery offences pertaining to its oil business in Africa. Glencore had pleaded guilty to the malfeasance in June of last year.
Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, in a message in TI Annual Newsletter, in Berlin, said: “Glencore has admitted that it paid bribes to Nigerian officials in connection with deals involving the purchase of oil and petroleum products from Nigeria’s state-owned company.
“It is time for Nigerian authorities to investigate these allegations and hold those responsible to account.”
He regretted that despite the fact that Glencore, facing repercussions for bribery, public officials on the receiving end have not faced any consequences.
“The same can be said for over $1 billion paid in bribes by Eni and Royal Dutch Shell for the rights to the OPL 245 offshore oilfield, to members of former president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Nigeria could lose as much as $5 billion because of the questionably negotiated fiscal terms under the deal, in addition to the $1.1 billion that it already lost due to corrupt payments, according to Italian prosecutors.”
Rafsanjani, who heads Transparency International’s Nigeria chapter and 10 other chapters of Transparency International, urged US lawmakers to adopt the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) to support anti-corruption efforts in their countries.
“FEPA would provide a valuable tool to help countries like Nigeria combat corruption and hold their officials accountable for accepting bribes. We urge US lawmakers to pass this important legislation,” Rafsanjani said.