According to information circulated by certain media, the Ministry of the Economy signed agreements with two oil companies to the detriment of the country’s interests. Reacting in a statement on November 25, the Ministry of the Economy made an update by promising to prosecute the authors of this information deemed to be erroneous.
Documents circulating on the web and processed by certain media since November 23 indicate that the Minister of the Economy and Recovery has signed transactional agreements to the detriment of the interests of Gabon and therefore of the public treasury.
According to this information, by simple signature of the minister, the debts of the French companies Total and Perenco have been considerably reduced. They went from 4.511 billion CFA francs to 150 million CFA francs for Perenco and from 4.516 billion CFA francs to 700 million CFA francs for Total. What constitutes a colossal shortfall for the state.
Reacting to this on November 25, the Ministry of the Economy and Recovery has, through a press release, said to draw the attention of the public following the dissemination of this information “of a defamatory nature on social networks” .
If the ministry notes that there have been transactional agreements for the benefit of oil companies, it notes that “the authors of this erroneous information confuse regulatory penalties and transactional agreements”. For the ministry, “these authors believe, wrongly, that these companies had expressed the will to pay their regulatory penalties which set at the highest level the fine threshold provided for by the Customs Code”.
According to the ministry, “faced with the inability of these companies to pay these very large sums, transactional agreements were granted to them in strict compliance with the said Code”, on the basis of article 327 of the Customs Code. A “transactional agreement is an agreement between two disputing parties: the companies on the one hand, and the customs or tax administration on the other,” said the ministry, which could file a complaint against the authors of this “information”.
Indeed, insists the administration of Jean-Marie Ogandaga, “given the defamatory nature of the content broadcast, the authorities of the Ministry of the Economy and Recovery reserve the right to take legal action against the authors of this malicious information. “.
