Oando Plc has, on Monday, refuted claims which circulated in the media that former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, has a significant stake in the company.
In a statement by the company, it was noted that the story which was circulated by Reuters, “is incorrect and misleading”.
Oando maintained that though the company’s shares are traded on the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges, it “does not and cannot control the trading in its securities on the floor of the respective exchanges.”
Besides, the report had also claimed that a British prosecutor told a court on Monday that Ibori “hid some of his assets in the oil firm Oando and money passed from the company’s accounts to Ibori’s Swiss accounts, ,” when a three-week confiscation hearing began at London’s Southwark Crown Court.
Oando stated thus; “Based on our current shareholding register, Mr. James Ibori’s shareholding stands at 443 shares out of a total issued and paid up share capital of 6.8 billion ordinary shares, which is clearly insignificant, and cannot be considered as ‘a large part of Oando’,” the statement added.
The company, however, admitted to selling some foreign exchange to Ibori “sometime in 2004” in the normal course of business.
The statement explained, “At the time of the transaction, this information was unknown to Oando. The total amount was US$2.7 million made in three separate transactions over a period of about seven months.”
“Consequently, Oando cannot be described as a company where James Ibori has hidden assets as a result of these foreign exchange transactions, Oando insisted in the statement.
Although Oando also revealed that it is not a party to the case but only had its interest represented in court by a British lawyer, Andrew Baillie QC who was quoted to have said that “it is unfortunate that our client has been dragged into these proceedings.”
“There is no suggestion from the prosecution of any wrongdoing or involvement in wrongdoing on the part of Oando”, it said.
The integrated energy company accepted that sometime in 2004, in the normal course of its business, it sold some of its foreign exchange earnings for naira and the recipient of the US dollars was a company which has now turned out to be one controlled by James Ibori.