The Federal Government (FG) has
ordered a fresh review of the Siemens and Halliburton cases, Former Managing
Director and Director of Finance of Siemens Nigeria Ltd, Mr. Edward Seidel and
Mr. Klaus Gilbert respectively in collaboration with some consultants bribed
top Nigerian officials to the tune of $17.5 million.
The Halliburton scandal concerned
the payment of millions of dollars to senior Nigerian officials to secure a
construction contract for a liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny Island in the
Niger Delta. German industrial conglomerate Siemens subsequently agreed to pay
a $1.6 billion settlement to U.S. and European authorities for bribery of
officials around the world, including Nigeria.
A court in Germany had indicted
Siemens and sentenced its top Executives to various terms of imprisonment for
bribing Nigerian officials to the tune of 1.3billion Euros. Halliburton and its
former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) entered a guilty plea
and agreed to pay $579 million, the largest corruption settlement ever paid by
a U.S. company in high-level bribery cases involving payments from
multinationals to secure contracts in Nigeria and other countries.
In Nigeria, the senior government officials
that received the bribes were never charged to court. The panel that
investigated the cases had recommended to late President Yar Adua that
those implicated should be charged to court was chaired by the former Inspector
General of Police (IGP) Mike Okiro. The case of Halliburton was
investigated by a security panel headed by retired AIG Ahmadu Ali, who at the
end of the case charged a former personal aide to a former Head of State to
court but the case was later struck out due to lack of diligent prosecution.
It was gathered that the purported
investigations into the Siemens and Halliburton cases conducted by the EFCC
during the last administration was half-hearted, hence a fresh review was
necessary by the present administration. Senior government official in last
administration were alleged to have stalled investigation because of vested
interest. The source which does not want to be named, disclosed to Daily Trust
yesterday that a request had been made to the EFCC to review the Siemens and
Halliburton cases.
As at the time of filing in this
report, about $180 million had been purportedly refunded to the FG through plea
bargaining with the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. In one
of their reports, investigators provided details of how bribery monies were
moved into Nigeria from foreign banks. It was alleged that between 1999 and
2002, there were various fund transfers from Jeffrey Tesler to two Nigerians
through the International Bank accounts of their respective companies as well
as personal accounts. Major International banks involved in this include -
Barclays Banks UK, Citi Bank NA New York US, Monument Trust, Channels Island,
Bank of New York e.t.c. It was also found out that some of the funds
transferred had no specific purpose and were not for projects that are
feasible.
A managing director of one of the
major construction companies in Nigeria also provided details of how some of
the bribe money were funnelled to the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), through
the group managing director of the NNPC. He said that in 2002, The GMD
approached him through one Mr. Stock Housing to support the ruling PDP
financially by way of donation. He said however, that based on company’s
principle and legal advise, his company declined to heed to the request. He
said that Stockhausen on the GMD’s request later approached him again for his
firm to provide logistic support to receive funds for PDP from foreign donors.
That request was later considered to further the democratic process in Nigeria.
He said the total amount remitted into same account was five (5) million US
dollar.
He said the first sum of $1 million
was released to the GMD in his Transcorp Hilton Hotel room in February, 2003 in
the presence of one Bodunde, who claimed to be a representative of PDP. The two
(2) other releases of $ 1million were made in the same manner and to same
persons at later dates. The last sum of $2 million was paid in naira,
equivalent of one million dollars each one in two installments. First by him
and the second by Hans Christ.
The naira equivalent paid to the duo
was N140 million for $1 million. When the scandal broke, the company
appealed to the Nigerian government to pay the sum of $25 million to escape
prosecution. The investigation report said the request was accepted and the
money was paid. However, it could not be esblished as to what happened to the
money. Daily Trust recalls that barely a week after the inauguration of
President Muhammadu Buhari, the United States government had asked him to
revisit the $182 million Halliburton bribery case and diligently prosecute all
those involved in the scandal.
President Buhari, according to
sources close to him, consequently, directed the appropriate security agencies
to reopen investigations into the case and make appropriate recommendations to
him. “Following this development, President Buhari has directed the
investigation committee made up of representatives of all security agencies to
dust off the files and complete the investigations and charge those indicted to
court,” the source said. Key security officers involved in the investigations
and lawyers at the Federal Ministry of Justice have started retrieving files
and dusting off documents on the case. When contacted on phone yesterday, EFCC
spokesman Wilson Uwujaren asked for time to get the relevant information across
to our correspondent.
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