Nigeria clears Saltpond Offshore of wrongdoing

The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has cleared the Saltpond Offshore Producing Company Limited (SPOCL) of any wrongdoing after thorough investigations into its activities, a company source has said.

EFCC sent a 10-member investigation team to join their counterparts at the Ghanaian Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to examine the books and documents and went on to the rig to read its metres and other gadgets before arriving at their conclusion.

Speaking to the GNA at the weekend, Mr. Addo Atuah, an Accra-based legal practitioner and Solicitor to SPOCL, said the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) of Ghana had also given SOPCL a clean bill of health.

Consequently, he said, his partners in the United States had agreed to file a lawsuit on behalf of the company and its operators, Lushann Eternit Energy Limited, as well as its Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Quincy Sintim Aboagye, against the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) at the Federal High Court in New York.

He said he was also seeking leave at the High Court in Ghana to file another lawsuit against the world class journal, based in the United States of America.

Mr. Atuah explained that WSJ on or about August 21, 2014 published an article – “Tiny Ghana Oil Platform’s Big Output Sparks Scrutiny”, which sought to insinuate that SOPCL was involved ‘in the shipping of barrels of ‘pilfered Nigerian crude’ to Europe, notably near the Port of Genoa in Italy.

He said WSJ was informed about the outcome of the investigations and, therefore, asked to retract its story and apologise, but it had ‘treated the demand with disdain.’

In a related development, This Day newspaper of Nigeria, which lifted the WSJ’s report, has upon finding out the truth retracted the story with apologies, he said.

Mr. Jarret Tenebe, Chief Executive Officer of Fenix Impex, Nigeria, who was arrested after the publication of the WSJ’s article, has been released, he said.