…Asks NNPC GMD, CBN Gov to appear before it
Thursday
The Senate Committee on Gas on Wednesday said it has
uncovered multiple illegal withdrawals totaling $1.151 billion by the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from its dividends with the Nigeria
Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) from November 2016 to date, while $5 billion was
also allegedly withdrawn by government from the same account in 2015 alone.
The amount is different from the $1.05 billion the
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mikanti Baru, claimed the corporation withdrew
from its dividend in NLNG to fund fuel subsidy when he appeared before the
Senate ad-hoc committee headed by Senate Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, last
month.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas, Senator
Bassey Akpan ( Akwa Ibom North East), who made this disclosure yesterday
evening when the committee met with top officials of both the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) and NNPC for clarifications over the alleged illegal withdrawals,
therefore directed the GMD of NNPC and CBN governor to appear before it next
week Thursday to clarify the outrageous withdrawals.
The Senate had two weeks ago mandated its Committee
on Gas to investigate the $1.05 billion illegally sourced from NLNG dividends
by NNPC and to also determine if there were other illegal withdrawals.
In line with the committee's mandate, Akpan declared at the meeting that “from the
available documents before us, aside the $1.05 billion we are mandated by the
Senate to investigate, several withdrawals have also been made from the NLNG
dividends account without required supporting documents to back them.
"This is unacceptable to us, this very reason
along with the fact that the GMD of NNPC and CBN governor are not here in
persons, we are not going to continue with the session today (yesterday).”
He, therefore directed both the NNPC and CBN to furnish
"this committee with other relevant documents on the withdrawals latest by
next Tuesday while NNPC GMD, the corporation's
Group Executive Director ( Finance) , Isiaka Abdulrasak, and the CBN Governor ,
Godwin Emefiele, must appear before us next Thursday."
The committee chairman further disclosed that even
the approving memo tendered by NNPC for the withdrawal of the $1.05billion
being investigated has no clear cut authorisation from required authorities.
Akpan said: “The memo 'NNPC GMD 49' signed by Baru
sent through the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, has no clear cut
language of request for approval for withdrawal of the $1.05billion but just
notification.
“Even if it has, approval for withdrawal from such
fund is supposed to be given by the National Economic Council (NEC) being an
account or dividends owned by the three tiers of government.”
The senator gave an assurance that "we are
surely going to carry out thorough
investigation on the illegal withdrawals to put an end to the cycle
because a whopping sum of $5billion was withdrawn from the same account in 2015
under this same government without any
convincing explanations made so far on what the money was used for."
The committee had earlier, while scrutinising the
NLNG account documents presented to it particularly by the Chief Operating
Officer of CBN Finance, Babatunde Adeniran, observed series of cash debited
from the account from November 2016 to June this year totaling $2.201billion.
The breakdown of the withdrawals not supported by
required approving documents as observed by the committee are
$86.546,526million withdrawn from the account
on November 22, 2016, allegedly being payment on Paris Club loans for
the state governors, and $1.05 billion withdrawn on April 17, 2018, as National
Fuel Support Fund.
Others are $650million withdrawn from the account on
June 7 this year to offset the Joint Venture Cash Call by NNPC which ordinarily
supposed to be budget item payment and $415, 063million withdrawn from the
account also in June without clear explanation on the purpose for which it was
meant for, he explained further.
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