DPR officials remain in Lagos after N100m relocation allowances

March 9, 2013 by Fidelis Soriwei and Nnodim Okechukwu, Abuja

Director, DPR, Mr. Osten Olorunsola
| credits: File copy

There is a raging controversy over millions of naira paid to top officials of the Department of Petroleum Resources to relocate the operational headquarters of the department from Lagos to Abuja.

Officials at the DPR are saying that some months after the payment of transfer and inconvenience allowances to the top management at the directorate level, there is no serious pursuit of the purpose for which the money was released.

It was learnt that some of the beneficiaries of the relocation and inconvenience allowances have retired and left the service after being paid.

The officials who have left the service have not refunded the millions paid to them, it was learnt.

Several others are said to be retiring very soon and may leave the service like their counterparts without moving to Abuja in fulfilment of the purpose for which the funds were released.

A source at the DPR put the amount approved for the movement of the top officials of the agency and members of their families at “over N100m.”

It was gathered that the DPR management, in a letter dated July 26, 2011, with reference No. P1/1107/Vol.6.16, sought the approval of the petroleum ministry to begin the relocation of the department from its present office in Lagos to Abuja.

Reports had it that the ministry’s reply referenced MPS/2016/S.68/I/42, and dated September 2011, which was addressed to the Director DPR, approved the commencement of the relocation to Abuja.

However, since the approval, sources stated that the DPR management became reluctant to relocate.

The employees had stated that accommodation was a major problem inhibiting their relocation. This development warranted foot-dragging among the workers.

There were also complaints among some senior staff members with respect to the office space in Abuja.

They had alleged that the space was not enough to accommodate the entire workers of the firm, despite the fact that two floors in the new office had been reserved for the purpose, according to reliable sources.

Meanwhile, in a recent report, the department’s Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Mrs. Belema Osibodu, stated that the firm would still move.

She was quoted as saying, “The organisation will definitely move to Abuja and is planning adequately towards it already.”

It was further learnt that for some unclear reasons, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources had not said anything about the continued delay in the movement of the top management of the DPR to Abuja.

Apart from the Lagos headquarters of the DPR, the department has seven zonal offices in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Warri, Kaduna and Maiduguri.

When one of our correspondents contacted the DPR spokesperson in Lagos, Mr. Paul Osu, he said enquiries about the matter should be directed to the department’s office in Abuja.

At the Abuja office, an officer with the department said the Lagos headquarters was in the best position to address such enquiries.

The officer, who pleaded not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, argued that it was the Lagos office that was asked to move and not the zonal Abuja department.

Also, officials of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, which exercises supervisory responsibility over the department, refused to comment on the issue of relocation of the DPR operational headquarters from Lagos to Abuja.