In the past couple of days, Malta has been in the news. Well, not just the island nation of Malta but petrol blending plants allegedly in the country.
This followed an allegation by Africa’s richest man and President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, that some officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) own and operate an oil blending plant in Malta from where they import blended fuels into Nigeria.
The group CEO of NNPC Ltd, Mele Kyari had to deny that he owns any blending plant in Malta or that he is aware of any such plant being own by NNPCL executives but promised to investigate.
However, a report soon surfaced on social media alleging that Oando Plc, an indigenous oil company in Nigeria, owns majority stake in a Maltese company known as Raz Hanzir Oil Terminal Limited. The company was alleged to be involved in blending of petroleum products and the importation of these adulterated petroleum products into Nigeria.
Following these allegations, Oando in a statement signed by its Chief Compliance Officer and Company Secretary, Ayotola Jagun, debunked the allegations as false, stating that the claims were made with malicious intents.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to recent allegations on social and digital media, levelled against Oando PLC (‘Oando’ or ‘the Company’) of being a shareholder, and its Principals of being Board members, in a Maltese company, Raz Hansir Oil Terminal Limited that operates an oil storage and blending facility, and is purportedly responsible for importing adulterated petroleum products into Nigeria.
“Considering the above, we wish to refute such claims and attest that neither Oando PLC nor its Executives have ever held shares, investments, or interests in the fictitious Maltese company.
“As part of a comprehensive investigation into the basis of the false claims, we conducted a search of the Malta Business Registry, the official repository for all registered entities past and current within the country. Our search yielded no results for a company bearing that name. Subsequent due diligence efforts similarly failed to uncover any record of the company’s existence.
“We therefore believe that the false claims are of the malicious intent of misleading the public and our stakeholders”, the statement stated.
PODIUM REPORTERS FACT CHECKS CLAIM…
Podium Reporters conducted an investigation and found the following:
1. Ras Hanzir is a port city in Malta.
2. There is no online record of such company called Ras Hanzir Oil Terminal Ltd in Malta .
3. When the name of the company was searched on the Malta Business Portal, the search result was showing “Null” indicating no record of such a company in the official records. Most other search results are basically twitter posts and online news stories by people (mostly Nigerians) alleging that a company Ras Hanzir Limited exists, list of the company’s directors (mostly Oando executives) as well as news about the press statement by Oando debunking the allegations as false.
4. Further checks to find out if a facility like a blending plant exist in Ras Hanzir turns up results showing Ras Hanzir new cargo facility under construction and scheduled to be completed in 2025.
VERDICT: The company Ras Hanzir Oil Terminal Ltd is not in existence in Malta according to official records. Therefore the claim that Oando Plc are shareholders in the said company is FALSE.
