No secretly signed oil deal – Finance minister

MOGADISHU (Halbeeg News) – Somali government has dispelled claimed that it plans to sign covert oil deal with foreign companies.

This week, opposition leaders in a letter addressed to president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, said Federal Government was on course to secretly sign off oil blocks with two international oil firms

In a press conference, Somali minister for Finance, Abdirahman Duale Beileh accepted that the government met with foreign officials on the matter but no agreement to grant oil drilling rights to foreign companies was signed.

“Somali government has right to meet foreign companies, We meet companies seeking to know about Somalia’s oil blocks everyday but there is no agreement on oil drilling was reached with foreign companies,” he said.

Last week, Wadajir Party leader Abdirahman Abdishakur said the two companies on the deal with the outgoing Farmaajo administration are Coastline Exploration Inc and Liberty Petroleum Corporation.

The oppositionon leaders warned that signing deals in a secret manner could risks the country’s debt relief process and erode gains made thus far in riding the Horn of Africa nation of the crippling debt burden.

But the finance minister dismissed the claims by the opposition, saying “when signing a deal, it needs time because drilling oil takes decades as it companies preparations to settle down.”