A former executive of Wilbros International has admitted bribing Nigerian government officials as part of a scheme to win a natural gas pipeline contract.
Jason Edward Steph, 37, of Sunset, North Texas, United States, pleaded guilty on Monday that he funnelled more than $6m to the Nigerian officials to help win and then extend a large engineering, procurement and pipeline construction project in Nigeria.
The United States Justice Department which announced Steph’s admission, said the contract was to be executed through a joint venture controlled by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
The Houston Chronicle in a report on Tuesday quoted counsel to Edward, Mr. Matt Hennessy, as describing his client as “a good man who found himself in a difficult position.”
Hennessy added that his client ‘looks forward to putting this matter behind him.’
Wilbros International is a subsidiary of Wilbros Group, a Panama-based company that maintains its administrative offices in Houston. It provides construction, engineering and other services for the oil and gas industry.
Steph worked for Wilbros International from 1998 to April 2005. He became the company’s general manager, onshore operations in Nigeria in 2002
Wilbros International, together with a German partner, was bidding for a natural gas project known as the Eastern Gas Gathering System in the Niger Delta.
The total project, including a second phase, was valued at nearly $388m.
Steph admitted that in late 2003 he conspired with a former Wilbros executive based in Houston, two “sham” consultants, and some Nigeria-based employees of the German firm to make a series of payments to officials of the NNPC, the Peoples Democratic Party and a senior official in the government to win the base pipeline contract.
The original indictment against him in July alleged that he left the company in January 2005, and that the company began an investigation into allegations of tax improprieties related to a Bolivian subsidiary.
Eventually, that investigation broadened to include Nigeria, and Wilbros International stopped payments to the Nigerian consultants.
A plea agreement by Steph said that Jim Bob “J.B.” Brown, a former managing director of Wilbros International, and the German company employees became concerned that if the payments dried up, they would lose out on the second phase of the project, valued at $141m.
In his guilty plea before US District Judge Sim Lake of Houston, Steph admitted that he, Brown and the others arranged to continue funnelling payments to the Nigerian officials.
Brown pleaded guilty to a similar charge last year, the Justice Department said in a news release.
Steph faces a possible sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Justice Department officials said.
Lake set his sentencing for January 28.
A Wilbros spokeswoman declined to comment on Steph’s plea agreement.
Last week, Wilbros agreed to pay more than $32m to settle federal investigations of its dealings in Nigeria, Bolivia and Ecuador.
By Agency Reporter
The Punch
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
