Oil exploration in Turkana is bound to be surrounded by complications and scandals very soon with the level of collusion and opportunism going on in the organization of the company.
The explorers of the oil are said to have taken advantage of the opportunities available way before the rest of us could discover them.
One Mwendia Nyaga who was the Head of the National Oil Companies of Kenya (NOCK) when oil exploration was beginning between the year 2008 to 2011.
The two companies involved in oil exploration were Lundin Petroleum and Africa Oil, established through the facilitation of NOCK.
Martin Mwangi Mbogo was the Head of Lundin Petroleum- Kenya, an exploration company.
When oil exploration begun in 2011, the two had exclusive information to all the plans and ventures that would happen once exploration started. Mwendia Nyaga quit his job as the head of NOCK and went ahead to become an energy consultant to the Ministry of Energy and also to foreign companies coming to Kenya to explore the country’s oil prospects.
Mr Mbogo later became the Head of Tullow Oil in Kenya (still in office) and his wife MaryJane Mwangi is the CEO and Managing Director of NOCK.
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Investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with a database of about 200,000 offshore accounts listed Mwendia Nyaga as a shareholder to an offshore company known as Abantu Oil and Gas Limited. This company set up was facilitated by one Bruce McNaught who was later made the director. It was alleged that the company was started for tax evasion purposes since the rewards would be channeled into a trust to avoid tax.
Mwendia had also started Oil and Energy Services Limited 9 months before oil was ‘discovered’ with the objective of “capacity building” partners, officials and communities on oil issues.
In October 2012, Mr Mwendia started another company known as Oilfield Movers Limited to supply oil fields logistics, personnel and transport to African Oil and Tullow.
Oilfield movers have over the past few years provided transport of over 2 million barrels of oil and has billed Tullow Company billions of shillings for the services offered. All this is to the benefit of one person, Mwendia Nyaga.
Mr McNaught was again made the Director of Oilfield Movers in order to manage the newly found income.
With the offshore accounts, multiple companies and influential positions, it is clear that a section of oil explorers is creating an opportunistic trend to benefit themselves.
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