ABUJA - Nigeria has launched an investigation into claims that the US oil services giant Halliburton paid a 180 million dollar (144 million euro) bribe to secure a natural gas contract, officials said.

"We're very serious about corruption now. The idea is to make bribe giving and bribe taking unprofitable, we want to stamp this out," President Olusegun Obasanjo's spokeswoman Remi Oyo told AFP.

But while Obasanjo hopes that the probe will prove his anti-corruption credentials, it will add to the growing pressure on US Vice President Dick Cheney, Halliburton's former chairman.

The alleged bribe is said to have been paid in the late 1990s when Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was part of an international consortium building a four billion dollar gas plant in Nigeria.

Cheney was chairman of Texas-based Halliburton from 1995 until his election as President George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.

On Wednesday, US Justice Department officials confirmed that they had opened their own probe into the alleged bribe, and a French investigating judge has been investigating the deal since last year.

Oyo said that the case had been past to Nigeria's newly invigorated anti-graft body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Obasanjo has made little headway against Nigeria's endemic corruption since his 1999 election, but in recent months the EFCC has laid charges against a series of high-profile officials accused of taking bribes.

Last month five officials, including three former ministers, went on trial charged with accepting kickbacks from the French electronics giant SAGEM in exchange for a 214 million dollar contract to supply ID cards.

And on Friday, Obasanjo sacked two former defense officials accused of embezzling more than 800,000 dollars and handed their case to the EFCC.

Halliburton has also come under fire this year for overcharging for fuel, food and other supplies it was contracted to send to the US troops who were ordered into Iraq last year by Cheney's administration.

The company said last week has already repaid 6.3 million dollars following allegations its officials took kickbacks. Reports this week said another 27.4 million dollars was paid for food that was never delivered.

The Pentagon was already investigating whether Halliburton may have overcharged the military by 61 million dollars for fuel.

Copyright © 2004 AFP

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