ANOTHER convict may be in the making in the ongoing investigation regarding how an American oil services company, WILLBROS, indulged in a $6m bribery scandal in Nigeria, US government lawyers have revealed in Washington DC.
But Nigeria is yet to indict anyone in these probes after no less than three Americans have pleaded guilty to the accusation that they bribed Nigerian officials, according to a US Justice Department.
Paul G. Novak, a 43-year old consultant for Willbros International Inc. (WII), a subsidiary of Houston-based Willbros Group Inc. made the plea on Thursday before a US District Court Judge in Houston, admitting to be part of a conspiracy to pay more than $6 million in bribes to Nigerian officials and officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second term in office.
Announcing the development, US Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and Assistant Director Joseph Persichini Jr., of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said “the use of intermediaries to pay bribes will not escape prosecution under the FCPA.”
The use of intermediaries named consultant has now become well established and sufficiently exposed as the conduit that enabled several international bribery scandals whether between Nigerians and American companies or German companies.
Novak, who is said to have acted as one of such consultants, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Simeon T. Lake III in Houston to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and one substantive count of violating the FCPA.
His sentencing has been scheduled for February 19, 2010.
The US government lawyer Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer also stated that the US Justice Department “will continue to hold accountable all the players in an FCPA scheme – from the companies and their executives who hatch the scheme, to the consultant they retain to carry it out.”
But observers insist that a sticking point in America’s approach remains the unwillingness of the US government to share information with the Nigerian government or even make public the names of top Nigerian officials known to have participated in the bribery conspiracy.
The top FBI official involved in the investigation, Assistant Director Persichini only added that “the FBI is committed to investigating and weeding out corruption that inhibits honest business practices around the globe,” without any hint either from him or the US government lawyer on the involvement of Nigerian officials with whom Novak and his other US colleagues conspired.
In his plea, Novak admitted that from late 2003 to March 2005, he conspired with others to make a series of corrupt payments totaling more than $6 million to various Nigerian government officials and officials from a Nigerian political party to assist Willbros in obtaining and retaining the Eastern Gas Gathering System (EGGS) Project, which was valued at approximately $387 million.
The EGGS project was a natural gas pipeline system in the Niger Delta designed to relieve existing pipeline capacity constraints in Nigeria.
According to information contained in plea documents, Novak, along with alleged co-conspirators Kenneth Tillery, Jason Steph, Jim Bob Brown, three employees from a German construction company based in Mannheim, Germany agreed to make the corrupt payments to, among others, government officials from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS).
Others to whom payments were agreed to have been made include an unnamed Nigerian senior official in the executive branch of the Federal Government, members of a Nigerian political party, known to be the PDP, and officials from the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (SPDC).
According to information contained in plea documents, to secure the funds for those corrupt payments, Steph and others caused Willbros West Africa Inc. (WWA), to enter into so-called “consultancy agreements” with two consulting companies Novak represented in exchange for purportedly legitimate consultancy services.