08 June 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja – A former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mr. Funsho Kupolokun, has called for urgent step by government to clean up the process of awarding Oil Prospecting Licences, OPLs, and Oil Mining Leases, OMLs, in the country.\
Kupolokun, who described the process of the awards as faulty, said a clean-up of the process was necessary if the country intends to get maximum result from it.
Appearing before the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee investigating the award of the licences and leases in Abuja, Kupolokun, who ran the NNPC during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, denied involvement in the award of OMLs and OPLs during his tenure.
According to him, “The process of 2006 round of bidding was complex, which made us get less than what we could have gotten, especially on strategic projects. We thought what we did was the right thing but there are areas and issues that we now see went wrong.
“Even the competitive bidding where we invited prominent, credible people from all parts of the country, in a bid to make it transparent was still wrong because we see people even in the same room fighting even up till now.
“There is a need to clean up the process and make it transparent and better than the past,” he added.