Um, guess you didn't open the link on my next post. Well, never mind, I'll copy it for you below.
I realize this journalist doesn't interject his own opinions as much as in the link you provided, but it's still an interesting read (even though it's a couple of weeks old).
Posted by: Nightdaytrader
In reply to: None Date:7/2/2006 11:21:41 AM
Post #of 65968
Global group faults oil bid process in Nigeria
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Looks like these are different blocks (i.e., not JDZ) but this type of news won't help ERHC either.
ND9
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Global group faults oil bid process in Nigeria
July 2, 2006, 7 hours, 41 minutes and 42 seconds ago.
By ANDnetwork .com
The controversy over the last round bids for Oil Blocks took a new twist as The Federation of Global Watchdog, faulted the entire process and asked the President to review the whole process to ensure TRANSPARENCY.
The group in a statement issued at the weekend from its base in Finland, maintained that having followed with utmost concern and interest the controversy trailing the entire bid process for oil blocks licences in Nigeria, and given the fact that Nigeria is a signatory to several international protocols on TRANSPARENCY in the conduct of businesses, the FGW calls for a sanitisation of the process for bids to remove allegations of political victimisation, corruption and unethical conducts.
Mervi Nystrom, programmes co-ordinator of the FGW who issued the statement on behalf of FGW, said that her organisation "views with utmost disappointment and condemnation the alleged lack of TRANSPARENCY and ethical misconducts that characterised Nigeria’s 2005 Bid Round for licenses in the Oil and Gas Sector".
“Expectedly, the bid Round has been greeted with controversy, arising from alleged cases of tardiness” by officials of government.
While tracing the controversy to the decision of former Defence Minister, TY Danjuma’s Company, South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd, to go to court to challenge the federal government's decision on OPL 246 the Group insisted in a petition it forwarded to TRANSPARENCY International that a correction of the wrongs in the whole process is needed because "this has cast a slur on the global reputation and integrity of Nigeria and put to test President Olusegun Obasanjo's well known war on corruption”.
IT added: "The level of alleged cases of ethical misconduct and victimisation have reached such an alarming proportion that the country’s former Defence Minister and an operator in the all-important Oil and Gas Sector, TY Danjuma has slammed a legal action against the presidency in a bid to seek constitutional redress. There are so many victims of this open abuse of TRANSPARENCY ...who, for fear of political victimisation, cannot raise their voices."
It would be recalled that the 2005 bid round for the award of licences in the oil and gas sector have been characterised by controversy, accusations of lack of tidiness and ethical misconducts.
The Finland Scandinavia based affiliate of TRANSPARENCY International in its demands called on Obasanjo and all other global anti-corruption monitors to "intervene and ensure that correction of the wrongs is transparent, open and just, for anything short of this, would amount to an official endorsement of corruption by the Nigerian government".
She added: “We hereby call on president Obasanjo and the international community to investigate those involved in these alleged shady deals in order to institute a regime of TRANSPARENCY and global confidence in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
“This can only be done by ensuring that the wrongs in the 2005 bid rounds are corrected, the suppressed and short-changed are issued their licenses signatures or instruments without further delay, especially at a time when the rest of the world is looking up to Nigeria as a nation with the prospect of becoming Africa’s major hope. What is at stake is also indigenes firm because the oil majors are insignificant here."
They warned that oil and gas sector play a strategic role in Nigeria's development, the FGW urged the international community and Obasanjo to save the situation.
"The oil and gas sector holds sway in Nigeria, one of Africa's most significant nations. It is therefore against this background that the Federation of Global Watchdogs reiterate its call on President Obasanjo, global anti-corruption agencies and the international community to intervene in the worsening situation and controversy.
We however note with hope and optimism that Obasanjo has the capacity to effect these proposed far-reaching remedies, given his avowed stand against corruption.
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