‘Missing’ $20bn: Reps gives fresh ultimatum to Okonjo-Iweala

The House of Representatives has for the second time on Wednesday
asked the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to submit the full
version of the forensic audit report on the alleged missing Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation $20bn to it.
The House gave the first directive on Thursday last week, following a
motion moved by its Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila.
On Wednesday (yesterday), the House again asked the minister for the
report after Gbajabiamila complained that almost one week following
the first resolution, Okonjo-Iweala had not responded.
He said, "Mr. Speaker (Emeka Ihedioha, presiding), we request the
Clerk of the House to formally write the Minister to produce that
report to every member of this House.
"She has not produced the report, irrespective of the standing
resolution of this House. We want to have the full report, not the
snippets that they have been flying about."
The House endorsed his submission and directed the minister a second
time to comply.
An auditing firm, PriceWater House Coopers, had carried out the
forensic investigation on behalf of the Federal Government.
The Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Mr. Solomon
Olamilekan, told reporters shortly after the House rose that the
Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation only presented a
"highly-condensed version" of the report to the public.
He recalled that in the condensed version, the NNPC was directed to
remit a "minimum of $1.4bn into the Federation Account."
The lawmaker said that, as the committee overseeing public accounts,
PAC was duty-bound to ensure that the minister produced the report.
He ordered Okonjo-Iweala to submit the report not later than one week
from Wednesday (yesterday).
Olamilekan added, "The PAC, cognisant of the provisions of the
Constitution (1999), and empowered by the resolution, hereby requests
that the full report on the forensic audit by PWC, which must include
the initial raft report, the executive summary, management /internal
control letters, should be forwarded to the National Assembly not
later than one week from today(Wednesday)."
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has, in spite of the drop in its oil
revenue and dwindling allocations to the three tiers of government,
insisted that Nigeria is not broke.
"The country is not broke, we have been meeting our obligations
despite the challenges we have had with oil revenue streams but we
have been doing the best that we can to improve our revenue from the
non-oil sector," the Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda,
said.
Yuguda spoke with journalists after this month's Federation Accounts
Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja on Tuesday night.
The minister who, put the excess crude account at about $2bn, also
spoke briefly on the forensic audit report and the amount to be
refunded by the NNPC to the federation account.
"I have engaged the minister of petroluem and we have discussed the
time frame on the refund of that amount," he said.
FG, states, LGs' allocations drop by N188.8bn in January
The drop in crude oil prices market has taken its toll on the
federation account as statutory allocations to the three tiers of
government witnessed a decline of N188.8bn from the budgeted estimates
of N688.94bn to N500.13bn in January.
The N500.13bn which is contained in the communique issued at the end
of the FAAC meeting, also represents a decline of N80.25bn over the
N580.38bn shared by the federal, state and local governments last
December.
The N500.13bn, is made up of statutory allocation of N416.09bn;
Value Added Tax, N63.94bn; exchange gain, N8.57bn and refund of
N6.33bn made by the Nigerian National Petroluem Corporation to the
federation account to settle its indebtedness.
The communique attributed the decline in gross allocation to drop in
crude prices from $77.53m in November to $52.34m in December.
It also stated that a 33 per cent decrease in export volume between
November and December 2014 translated into a loss of $159.88.
The report read, "The gross revenue of N416.09bn received for the
month was lower than the N490.03bn received in the previous month by
N73.93bn.
"There was substantial loss of revenue due to further drop in crude
oil prices from $77.53m in November to $52.34m in December 2014.
"Also, a 33 per cent decrease in export volume between November and
December 2014 translated to a loss of $159.88m.
"The shutdown and shut-in trunks and pipelines at various terminals
continued to impact negatively on the revenue performance. Also,
non-oil revenues performed below the 2014 budgetary provisions."
From the statutory allocation, the Federal Government received
N194.34bn, representing 52.68 per cent while the states and local
governments got N98.57bn and N75.99bn respectively.
Similarly, N39.45bn was shared to the oil producing states based on
the 13 per cent derivation principle.
The Federal Government received N9.20bn or 15 per cent from revenue
from VAT while the states and local governments got N30.67bn and
N21.48bn respectively.
'Corruption, not oil crash behind Nigeria's woes'
The All Progressives Congress Vice-Presidential candidate, Yemi
Osinbajo, has said that the biggest problem facing Nigeria is
corruption and not dwindling oil prices.
Osinbajo stated this in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Wednesday during
the presentation of APC's 2015 manifesto on Securing Nigeria's Future.
He said, "Nigeria problem, as you know, is not lack of resources. The
government of today has tried to give the impression that the problem
of the country is that of falling oil prices , which is now below $50
per barrel.
"That is not true, that is not the problem. The problem is the
corruption or the theft of resources."
The former Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice,
added that the Federal Government itself had confirmed that over
400,000 barrels of oil are stolen every day from Nigeria.
He put the value of the stolen oil at N3.1tn a year.
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