government funds are missing
Nigeria's Central Bank Governor,
Sanusi Lamido, struck a defiant
tone again Tuesday, accusing
state-run oil firm, the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation,
NNPC, of failing to pay to the
federation account at least $20
billion of government oil
revenues.
The Nigerian government and
the NNPC in particular have come
under intense scrutiny after a
leaked letter from Mr. Sanusi to
President Goodluck Jonathan last
September showed how the
NNPC failed to pay the huge oil
sale money into government
coffers.
In the memo, Mr. Sanusi said the
firm cornered $49.8 billion-
about N8 trillion- which is the
equivalent of Nigeria's entire
budget in two years.
Despite data and documentation
provided by the CBN governor,
the government has denied
losing money. At a meeting with
the Senate Finance committee in
December, Finance minister,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said a
government inter-agency
committee, which includes the
NNPC and the CBN, had realized
that "only" $10.8 billion was yet
to be accounted for.
The traced sums were paid to
other agencies of government
like the Department of Petroleum
Resources, DPR, and the Federal
Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, the
NNPC said.
The finance minister said the
"reconciliation process" was
ongoing and assured the
outstanding $10.8 billion will be
fully accounted for.
But more than a month later, the
government has failed to account
for the missing money. The
Director General, Budget Office of
the Federation, told the senate
finance committee on
Tuesday the delay was because
the NNPC had failed to provide all
needed documents.
He said the NNPC claimed it was
still accounting for the missing
money with the Petroleum
Products Pricing Regulatory
Agency, PPPRA, which is in
charge of subsidy managements.
The corporation and the PPPRA
have another one week to
provide all required documents
before the committee begins full
examination of their responses.
Intrigues ahead of Senate
hearing
The NNPC had earlier claimed,
without providing proof, that the
remaining $10.8 billion was used
to maintain oil pipelines, and pay
fuel subsidy, a claim that many
Nigerians, including governors,
have rejected.
Last week, lawmakers told
PREMIUM TIMES exclusively how
the presidency, the NNPC and the
petroleum ministry mounted
pressure on the Senate to
jettison its investigation.
According to our sources, the
government feared Mr. Sanusi,
whose tenure ends June 2014,
will expose even more damaging
evidence of high wire fraud in
the petroleum sector.
The government offered to back
the hearing if the senate
committee makes available to it
Mr. Sanusi's presentation, to
enable administration officials
prepare appropriate response.
To stem the pressure, the
investigative hearing, originally
billed for last Thursday, was
rescheduled for Tuesday.
At the session, Mr. Sanusi
accused the NNPC of not
accounting for $20 billion.
The CBN governor said while he
agreed some agencies such as
the FIRS received other payments
on behalf of government,
available documents showed that
the NNPC shipped $67 billion but
only paid $47 billion into the
government account.
"Let us know what happened to
the remaining $20 billion," he
said.
Mr. Sanusi said the NNPC's claim
that 80% of the unremitted
funds came in form of subsidy
on kerosene cannot stand since
a presidential directive had long
barred such subsidy. "NNPC must
show where it got the authority
to buy kerosene at N150 and sell
at N40, and then inflict the
burden of loss on the federation
account," he said.
The CBN governor also accused
the NNPC of illegally divesting the
federal government's interest in
some oil wells in favour of two
private companies, Atlantic
Energy and Seven Energy and
turning about to claim the
proceeds from those wells were
not for the government.
Also, on the NNPC's claims of
paying subsidy on behalf of
government, Mr. Sanusi said the
claims could not be credible since
the NNPC had consistently
rendered returns to the
Federation Account Allocation
Committee (FAAC) indicating that
it made no deductions for
subsidy.
The NNPC again dismissed the
new allegations, saying the CBN
is not an auditing organization
to understand its accounting.
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