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To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (45705)	5/31/1999 10:25:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 95453

Nigeria. Financial Times, June 1: Obasanjo freezes predecessor's contracts By William Wallis in Lagos Nigeria's new leader, Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday suspended all contracts made by his military predecessor since the beginning of the year. It throws doubt on hundreds of millions of dollars of business but halts a drain on the country's hard-pressed treasury. A statement by Mr Obasanjo's three-day-old administration said a panel would be set up to review "contracts, licences, awards, approvals and appointments to determine their propriety and relevance". The contracts are believe to involve both Nigerian and international companies. The move by the new government, which took office at the weekend following elections aimed at ending 15 years of military rule, is likely to reassure Nigeria's creditors, which include the International Monetary Fund, that Mr Obasanjo intends to fulfil pledges to tighten up spending. However, the review may make relations difficult between Mr Obasanjo a former general - and powerful interests in the country's business community. Officials of the outgoing government said reserves stood at $3.3bn (£2bn) at Mr Obasanjo's inauguration and attributed the plunge from $7bn at the end of 1998 to the cost of elections, Nigeria's participation in the civil war in Sierra Leone and the hosting in April of the junior football world cup. Contracts in industries including oil, construction, communications and defence could be affected under the criteria of the review. The participation of some western financial consultants in Nigeria's privatisation programme is also likely to be considered. During the last six months of the military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, numerous contracts were awarded - many to companies linked to supporters of the administration and at financially unfavourable terms. In some instances businessmen claimed that they had been asked by officials to mark up invoices by up to 40 per cent. Among the most potentially lucrative of the agreements which could be affected are 11 deep offshore oil concessions awarded in March to Nigerian companies with ties to interests from previous military regimes. Some diplomats and analysts saw the award of these concessions, adjacent to waters with hundreds of millions of barrels of oil reserves, as part of a compromise to ensure the military handover of power.