Raging labour crisis at Addax Petroleum Limited took a new dimension last Thursday as the workers under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), blew the whistle on alleged capital flight going on in the Chinese oil exploration company.
But the management could neither confirm nor deny the allegations of capital flight in which the company was alleged to have used its sister firm, Kaztec Engineering Limited, to illegally repatriate over $2billion dollars out of the country.
Capital flight, the workers alleged, is one of the ways the Oil & Gas Upstream Company is bleeding the company to death if only to bring an end of workers' agitations.
Against this backdrop, the workers' union made passionate appeal to the Minister of State for Petroleum and Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ibe Kachukwu, to investigate the operations of Addax to save the company and the jobs of hundreds of Nigerian employees.
The Addax branch of PENGASSAN told newsmen that the leadership of the company has, in recent times, deliberately engaged in capital flight to the tune of $2billion to undermine the existence of the firm as a going concern and the country itself.
A document made available to newsmen by the Chris Ogienwonyi-led Addax branch of PENGASSAN stated that the company Addax management have been diverting contracts and monies to its sister firm, Kaztec Engineering Ltd, for the sole purpose of repatriating the monies to China without hindrance.
The documents cited couple of contracts allegedly diverted to Kaztec including Engineering, procurement and construction of platforms and topsides for OMLs 123, 126 and 137 .
They also cited TBs 3173, 3219, 3229 and a couple of other contracts single-sourced to Kaztec, a major facility contractor.
According to Ogienwonyi, Addax has diverted contacts valued at $365million, $425million and $1.35billion to Kaztec at different times, stressing that it was for that reason former General Manager of Addax was moved to Kaztec as its Commercial Director.
Further more, PENGASSAN alleged that Addax committed some of its staff to working simultaneously as Kaztec staff, receiving monthly salaries from both companies (Addax and Kaztec) while at the same time Addax was diverting contracts to Kaztec.
Findings reveal that, April 8th and 23rd, 2015 leadership of PENGASSAN had written to Addax Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Cornelis Zegelaar, and Kaztec Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Yi Zhang seeking for explanation for this perceived conflict of interest within the ranks but were rebuffed.
Presenting evidence of Zegelaar's conflicting interest, PENGASSAN union leader explained that on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 John Niezner who was the General Manager, Facilities for Addax, presented himself as the Managing Director of Kaztec during an indepth presentation on Ofrima Udele project to the former GMD of NNPC, and the top management at NNPC Towers, Abuja.
It was also discovered that at the same occasion, Michael Simpson, who was Senior Project Advisor for Addax Facilities Engineering and Manager of OfrimaUdele Project, was also presented as Kaztec Engineering Facility Manager.
An organogram of Kaztec reveals six Addax management staff from Facilities Department co-opted into Kaztec, namely John Niezner (Managing Director), Aiden O’Conner (Manager, Business Process), and Peter Gibbs (Senior Manager, Q-HSSE).
Others are Mike Simpson (Manager, Engineering), James Syme (Manager, Fabrication) and Matthew Dowell (Manager, Installation).
"All these former expatriate staff of Addax Petroleum, while they were in the service of Addax colluded to make Kaztec the single source contractor as exemplified in TBs 3173 (Fabrication and Installation of Subsea Pipelines and Platforms in OMLs123 and 126), TB 3229 (EPCIC of Pipelines and Platforms in OML 137), TB 3249 (Tender Assisted Drilling for Ofrima Udele Project) and TB 3230 (FSO for Ofrima Udele Project)," Ogienwonyi alleged.
When contacted, Addax Petroleum could neither confirm nor deny the allegations, even after the media relations officer, Bola Asemota, had requested that the enquiries be mailed to her official email address. But several days after workers' allegations were emailed to her, the company could not respond despite reminders.
It will be recalled that looming mass sack announced by the company recently had rekindled labour dispute between management of the company and PENGASSAN.
The company had cited ‘unresolved issues with the NNPC’ that led to a termination of crude lifting, unresolved 'side letter issue', and low oil prices, as three major reasons for the proposed staff cuts.
In a statement titled "Strategic Organisational Realignment", dated October 20, and made available to newsmen, Addax had said that the reality of falling oil price prompted action by all exploration and production players in the oil and gas industry, and that Addax is taking appropriate measures to align to the realities of the market by reviewing every resource management affecting company's bottomline.
But PENGASSAN countered insisting that the oil company had no justification for staff reduction, stressing that the problem with the company is more of resource mismanagement rather than oil price fall, high operating cost and other reasons given by the management.
Rather than sacking workers, the union urged management to address huge mismanagement of resources symbolised by a "wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle" of the Managing Director, Cornelis Zegelaar.
They demanded that management provided total employee cost over the entire operating expenses, wondering if it was up to 10 percent.
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