NKIRUKA NNOROM & KUNLE KALEJAYE

Oando Plc a major player in Nigerian oil and gas industry last week disclosed that it received the sum of N270 billion as subsidy claims from the Federal Government in the last four years, adding that it was not involved in the scandal.

This was made known by the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Wale Tinubu, in a parley with the management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, and the stock broking community.

Tinubu said that the company decided not to join words with the Federal Government during the fuel subsidy probe to allow for peace, adding that in a clime like Nigeria where the government is the major benefactor of businesses, it would be unwise to raise dust over the subsidy claims.

According to him, “government has paid us at least N270 billion subsidy claims in the last four years. A lot of our shareholders dropped their shares as a result of the dust raised by that subsidy scandal. We suffered for failing to declare our position and the real value of our petroleum subsidy whether it was paid, whether there was scam or no scam. We are the biggest importer in the country and we had the largest bills.

“The spotlight was on Oando. In the process, a lot of foreign shareholders sold their shares. We just came back from an international road show to see the foreign investors as well, and pretty much a lot of them dropped their shareholding without benefit of support from local shareholders because we didn’t pay dividend, and that is the truth.

“So, we suffered a reduction in the share price during that period for nine months, remember we were in the news everyday; subsidy this, subsidy that. We were not paid, we were owed over N52 billion. The fact remains that there was a lot of panic selling,” he said.

He continued: “I was accused of not coming forward to publicly state Oando’s position in the subsidy scam, but the truth of the matter is that you don’t really do well when a company begins to challenge government’s position because you depend heavily on the government for support.

“At the end of the day, I did not want a situation where we bite the government on why they didn’t pay us our subsidy claims because they give the allocation themselves to those companies that were reported that committed scam with documentations, so why allow the innocent company suffer?

“But we had to keep quiet, put our heads down, and allow them to complete their investigation, where they investigated everybody.”