By Amos Harris |
The National Oil Company of Liberia Officer in Charge, Jacob Kabakole has vehemently rubbished media report of his alleged involvement in the stealing of $ 600,000 United States Dollars.
Addressing the Ministry of Information Monday’s press briefing at the Ministry of Information, Mr. Kabakole informed journalists that information circulating in the media is maliciously criminal and a concussion of lies.
He said those involved in what he called yellow journalism are not helping the country and its people in their bid to destroy people who have Liberia at heart, and further used the occasion to publicly challenge anyone with evidence to bring it forward, and proof him wrong.
Speaking on the issue of the allegations of “squandering of funds amounting to six hundred thousand United States dollars are baseless, malicious unfounded and without merit at no point in my oversight of the national Oil Company I have not signed off on any disbursement of such a sum to anybody” he told journalists during the press conference.
According to him, these claims are not only false, but are deliberate attempt to tarnishing my hard earned reputation that I have built on integrity and dedication to national progress.
“I am further convinced that the actors behind this ruse have a more immediate intention to discredit the president’s appointment of officers in charge and to undermine the amount of consideration His Excellency gave to making this decision.
“With this realization, I am even more compelled to address the issues as I am now doing” to those media institutions who demonstrated remarkable professionalism in investigative journalism, by seeking us out and making inquiries into the validity of the story.
While many of us may assume this to be intuitive standard practice on the part of the media, this fiasco and the related publications are evident that it is not so.
What we see instead is the sort of yellow journalism that is characteristic of a smear campaign, so, I really appreciate those institutions who exercised due diligence to uphold both the integrity and dignity of our fourth estate.
“To set the record straight, here are the factual details of the project progression and financial transaction prior to my appointment as officer in charge, on July 13, 2023 , NOCAL entered into a contract with BMC Group Inc, for an office construction project valued initially at $ 2.9 million.
This contract was duly processed and appears to have adhered to the public procurement and concession commission (PPCC) guideline.
According to Jacob Kabakole, the first payment to BMC totaling $1,456,928.84 million, was made on July 17, 2023 signifying the commencement of the contractual obligations.
This payment was made in two separate checks of US$ 728,464.42 each, the actual contract began in November 2023 followed by a contract amendment on 23, 2023.
This amendment was approved by the PPCC to increase the contract value to $4.5 million to accommodate necessary project adjustment, this new amount represented an increment of 1.5 million or 51.72%.
NOCAL hired TSC Global as its project consultant with the primary responsibility of monitoring, evaluating and certifying that BMC was carrying out the project according to the terms and specifications of the contract.
On December 15, 2023, an additional payment of $796,259.39 was made to BMC bringing the total disbursement to $ 2.2 million which accounted for 50% of the revised contract value.
“ It is crucial to note that these developments including the financial transactions, occurred before my appointment, my official responsibilities commenced on January 29, 2024 by which time the project was well advanced and the outlined payments had been completed” he said.
In continuation of the fact stated above we have paid 6.7% of employees educational benefits which my predecessor did not see as a priority over a five period. The leadership of the company at the time claimed it was executing austerity measures and educational benefits were not as critical for the operational expense of NOCAL.
The institution on my arrival owed 132, 750.00 USD to staff for educational benefit, the some leadership unfortunately during their departure paid severance in the tune of close to half a million dollars defeating their previous argument for refusing to pay employee benefit.
I remain unwavering in my oversight of this very important national corporation, this is my commitment to the betterment of NOCAL and by extension and our beloved country, Liberia.
I understand how I may appear as an easy target on account of my relationship to his excellency, but no one should be fooled by this, he said.
“This is not a weakness, but a strength that encourages me to be extra diligent and to work demonstratively harder to achieve the pillars of the Rescue agenda for Liberia” he said
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