By BASHIR ADEFAKA
President Muhammadu Buhari has ensured a reduction in Nigeria’s Joint Venture cash call indebtedness for oil exploration activities from $5.1bn he inherited in 2015 to $1.4bn as at May 2021.
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), which disclosed this in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, sent to The DEFENDER, said the country has also been fulfilling its obligation to the International oil companies (IOCs) in the last 6 years.
It said: “We are glad to inform Nigerians that the days of government failure to fulfill its obligations to JV partners in the oil and gas sector on the watch of President Buhari.
“Now,Nigeria is not only meeting its cash call obligation as and at when due,it has been defraying the debt piled up by previous Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led administrations.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Buhari administration inherited a cash call arrears of about $5bn in 2015 and within one year,it sealed an agreement with the five oil majors to pay up the debt within a period of time.
“Today, the indebtedness that piled up at a time of a oil boom has been reduced to $1.464bn by the current administration in spite of declining revenue as a result of low oil price.
“We invite Nigerians to know that the $5bn JV cash call debt is not part of the $63bn public debt the PDP left behind with little or nothing to show for it.
“This is what the Buhari administration is having to contend with and at the same time is bridging years of infrastructure gap with a modern national rail network as well as completing abandoned projects.”
BMO added that the funds that the government committed to defraying the JV cash call debt could have been used for other things if PDP had been a responsible ruling party.
“So much has been said about the Buhari administration taking loans with little attention to what those loans are being used for.
“We make bold to say if the last 3 PDP-led administration had acted responsibly with public funds and built necessary infrastructure across the country in 16 years, there would have been little need for the incumbent to take loans tied to infrastructure.
“Now,the country has, in just under 5 years, been forced to pay IOCs more than $3bn that could have been committed to health or any other sector of the economy in need of attention.
‘It is also interesting to know that the amount that has been used to pay part of the debt is less than what Nigeria has had to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in recent times.
“So if not corruption,we wonder why the previous government could not have fulfilled its obligation to its JV partners even at a time the country was making so much from crude oil.
“It would also not be totally out of place to ask PDP why it was difficult to consistently make cash call payments but like many Nigerians, we know that the ruling party will have no answer to provide.
“This is especially as the President Buhari administration has been making regular cash call payments to the IOCs and also paying up the debt even at a time of low accruals from crude oil sales,”the group said.
It urged Nigerians to pay more attention to what President Buhari has done in the last 6 years to correct all the wrongs PDP had done in the past.
