Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) says it will communicate the next steps of the ongoing bid round of marginal fields soon.
Several of the 500+ companies who have been notified of their prequalification had fruitlessly attempted to access the portal, on Monday and Tuesday, to pay for the next step of the round.
But officials at the regulatory agency told Africa Oil+Gas Report, they were still dealing with matters arising over the pre-qualification process and that access to the portal was closed for now.
The portal itself, on the DPR website, says: “Next step of the bid round to be communicated, soon”.
For the purpose of further payments, the notice on the portal adds: GIFMIS Code for Application Fee: 1000289370 and GIFMIS Code for Bid Processing Fee: 1000289383.
The matters arising that the officials spoke about has to do with the fact that there were companies who could make the qualification, but who are owing government a tax, tariff, fee or the other. A company may have fulfilled all obligations to government, but a director on its board may be a director in another company that is delinquent in paying statutory fees. Prequalificiation of such a company is on hold until the director clears himself.
Companies so affected have to comply by close of business on Friday, July 24, 2020.
In effect, the Nigerian government has taken advantage of the bid round to reclaim some of the debts owed to it.
As an update to our last report, there are no clear schedules for the remaining steps of the bid round, now. The best thing to do is keep visiting the website of the DPR, https://www.dpr.gov.ng/
