. Earth Science News .
AFRICA NEWS
Nigerian leader to promote more foreign investment

Technip hit with 338-million-dollar fine for Nigeria bribery
Washington June 28, 2010 - Global engineering firm Technip Monday agreed to pay a 338-million-dollar fine for scheming to bribe Nigeria officials, the US Justice Department announced. US officials had alleged that the Paris-based company was "engaged in a sophisticated, decade-long scheme" to bribe Nigerian officials in an effort to secure billions of dollars in contracts. "The resolutions announced today demonstrate once again the department's commitment to aggressively investigate and prosecute international bribery by US and foreign corporations alike," said US prosecutor Mythili Raman.

That Technip now must pay criminal penalties and relinquish ill-gotten gains totaling 338 million dollars "should make clear that, in the end, bribery of foreign officials will have consequences," Raman said. Through a joint venture with Kellogg, Brown and Root and others, Technip hired two agents to pay bribes to Nigerian officials to obtain contracts to build natural gas facilities worth six billion dollars. The venture paid companies controlled by the agents 182 million dollars, part of which was intended to be used for bribes. Under the agreement announced Monday, the US will defer prosecution of Technip for two years while Technip retains an independent monitor to ensure it is in compliance with anti-bribery laws.
by Staff Writers
Abuja (AFP) June 28, 2010
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said Monday his government will create programmes that will encourage more foreign investments into Africa's most populous country, his office said.

"We have a growing population of young people and as a government we have an enormous responsibility to plan and prepare for their future," Jonathan said during separate meetings with outgoing ambassadors of China and Netherlands.

"Greater foreign investment will clearly help us in creating more gainful employment for our youths and we will do all we can to promote it," he said in a presidential statement.

He said Nigeria was now opening its doors to foreign investors more than ever before.

Jonathan said sectors like aviation, power supply and the development of infrastructure, previously run by the government, were now open to private investors from within and outside the country.

He assured the envoys that his government was doing everything possible to deal with all issues discouraging foreign investors, saying that significant progress was being made in restoring peace to the oil-rich but volatile Niger Delta.

Officials said retraining and rehabilitation of thousands of former militants who last year surrendered their arms to embrace a government amnesty was due to begin this week in southern Cross River state.

Netherlands Ambassador Van der Wiel said in his remarks that the annual volume of trade between his country and Nigeria grew from two billion dollars when he arrived in 2006 to four billion.

Chinese envoy Xu Jiango said the volume of trade between Nigeria and China now stood at about seven billion dollars, up from three billion in 2006.



Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
Africa News - Resources, Health, Food



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


AFRICA NEWS
U.S. military contractors eye Africa
Algiers, Algeria (UPI) Jun 28, 2010
The U.S. military's Africa Command, whose mission is widely seen as protecting U.S. energy interests, is reported to be seeking to move in private defense contractors to set up a sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation to monitor terrorist infiltration. This project, if it gets going, could provide a vital link between U.S. forces and those of North African states that in April l ... read more







The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement