Somalia’s government offered to cooperate in an investigation by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office into Soma Oil & Gas Exploration Ltd., the Horn of Africa nation’s Petroleum Ministry said.
The SFO said on Friday it’s probing the London-based company, along with Soma Oil & Gas Holdings Ltd., Soma Management Ltd. and other in “relation to allegations of corruption in Somalia.” Soma denied the allegations and is cooperating with the investigation.
“Somalia’s oil and gas reserves are a national asset to be used and exploited in the national interest and we are committed to achieving this with complete integrity and transparency,” the ministry said in a statement e-mailed Sunday.
Soma, chaired by former U.K. Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, has spent $40 million on seismic surveys of at least 60,000 square kilometers (23,166 square miles) off the Somali coast. The company has proposed a deal with the Somali government that may grant it as much as 90 percent of the country’s prospective oil revenue.
Somalia’s Petroleum Ministry said it “acknowledges the capacity building support agreement with Soma” signed on April 24, 2014. It didn’t elaborate.
According to an April 24, 2014, letter posted on the ministry’s website, Soma Oil and Gas agreed to pay six ministry officials $5,000 a month for a year and supply office equipment in a program costing a total of $400,000.
Corruption Ranking
Paying salaries to officials as part of a capacity-building program may create a “concerning conflict of interests,” Barnaby Pace, a campaigner at Global Witness, the London-based advocacy group, said by e-mail.
Soma has nothing further to add to its statement on Saturday saying it’s cooperating with the authorities, the company said by e-mail.
Transparency International, the Berlin-based anti-graft watchdog, last year ranked Somalia as the world’s most corrupt country alongside North Korea.
Source: Bloomberg
