The House of Representatives ad hoc committee on $17 billion allegedly stolen from undeclared crude oil and liquefied Natural Gas on Monday read the riot acts to the Federal Government agencies over their refusal to appear before it on the investigation into the scam
This is coming just as the Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara said that, the House would not shy away in probing corruption in the oil and gas sector.
The affected agencies that failed to show up before the Committee include: Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Nigeria Port Authority, NPA, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Accountant General of the Federation, Attorney General of the Federation, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and others.
The Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Honourable Abdulrazak Namdas who read the riot acts when the committee discovered that, few government agencies, including Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR sent in representatives.
But the chairman of the committee said that, even those present did not have letter of authority showing they are truly representing their managing director of chief executive officers.
The Committee however insisted that the heads of the government agencies must be present at the hearing today.
According to him, “the government is fighting corruption, its a very serious business, we have promised as part of our legislative agenda to actually support this government to fight corruption and we expect government agencies to also join in this crusade.”
The Speaker, who was represented by the Minority Whip, Honourable Yakubu Barde, who chronicled some of the corruption allegations in the oil and gas sector, said that, “by extension no amount of investigation of corruption in the oil industry could be said to be over-kill, as corruption in the industry has become endemic.”
The investigation of the $17 billion allegedly stolen from undeclared crude oil and liquefied natural gas export to global destinations by the House, he said, remained part of the on-going process of confronting the hydra-headed monster called corruption in oil and gas sector.
According to him, “repeatedly the nation has received disturbing audit reports of one of the nation’s gate keeper in the extractive industry against the national oil conglomerate and some international oil companies, IOCs where it was alleged that an amount totalling over $4.4 billion was trapped somewhere, instead of remitting them into the federation account.”
Earlier, in his address, Hon. Namdas said that, “Preliminary investigation reveals that the past government initiated probe on this missing $17 billion, but unfortunately the investigation has remained inconclusive as it is being marred by litigations.”
He added that, “the committee had written to a number of International Oil Companies and relevant government Agencies for information on the alleged missing funds. I am happy to inform the gathering that the committee has gotten useful information from the submissions made thereon.”
To this end, he said that, “report have it that over 57 million barrels of Nigeria crude oil were illegally exported and sold in the USA between January 2011 and December 2014. The estimated revenue loss by the government of Nigeria is around $12,722,600,327. At an exchange rate of N196/$1, this translates to over N2 trillion.”
and then