Whistle-Blower: Reps ask Tinubu, 10th Assembly to conduct forensic audit of N32.500bn paid by CBN

The 9th Assembly at the last plenary urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the 10th Assembly to conduct a detailed forensic audit of the sum of N32.5 billion allegedly paid by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into two whistle-blowers, namely: Bizplus Consulting Services Limited and GSCL Consulting Services Limited.

The house recommendation was contained in the report of the ad-hoc committee which investigated the alleged loss of over $2.4 billion in revenue from the illegal sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil in 2015 including crude oil export from 2014 to date, chaired by Hon. Mark Gbillah, which was adopted before the 9th Assembly formally ended the 4-year legislative activities.

In its findings, the ad-hoc committee “confirmed the payment of N16,250,000,000 into each of the UBA accounts of Bizplus Consulting Services Limited and GSCL Consulting Services Limited by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“Both accounts were opened by UBA for each company about the same time. The payment was made by the CBN to both accounts on the same day, the money was withdrawn from both accounts within the same period of about 2 months and from account statements submitted by the bank, both accounts were not operated again thereafter.

“It appears both accounts were opened only for the purpose of lodgment of these payments. The Accountant General and the Ministry of Finance claim not to have any knowledge of these payments or the reasons for same while the Central Bank of Nigeria and Accountant Generals office did not respond to the Committee’s queries in this regard,” the report alleged.

On the allegation bothering on the $2.4 billion stolen crude oil, the House advised the National Assembly (Senate and the House), anti-graft and other agencies of government not to waste taxpayer’s funds on a further future investigation of these allegations as they appear to be completely fraudulent and unsubstantiated.

The House also recommended the “continuation of a detailed investigation of all crude oil exports from Nigeria from 2011 till date involving all oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria who are involved in crude oil production and exportation and the detailed investigation of a report of the consultants and legal team engaged by the Federal Government through NIMASA who identified loss of revenue to Nigeria from discrepancies in quantities of crude oil exports.

“House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) of the 10th Assembly should prevail on the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority, Nigerian National Petroleum Company, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Index and other government-related entities to explore the production of a harmonized, central and regularly updated record of Nigeria’s crude oil exports and proceeds and the committee should superintend the execution of same.

“A further investigation by a related House committee in the 10th Assembly should be conducted into the level of compliance to the payment of royalty and other related taxes by oil and gas companies including details of payments made to date.

“NEITI should be advised to provide its updated records of royalty and taxes paid in 2021 and 2022 and explore an efficient way to ensure its records are up to date considering its watchdog status.”

The House further urged security and anti-graft agencies to prosecute any of the individuals who initially made these allegations if any one of them continues to peddle these false allegations after the committee’s investigation.

The lawmakers also urged Abuja High Court handling the case against the related individuals to resume the hearing and prosecution of the case so justice can be meted out appropriately if any of the individuals are found culpable.

The House also advised Mr Jackson Ude and Point Blank News to issue a public retraction of their publication of these allegations on their website and other media outlets considering the damage this publication has done to the reputation of related government officials and should strongly be admonished to be more circumspect in their future publications.

The lawmakers also dismissed the allegation levelled against the current NIMASA Director General about his operation of Fidelity Bank accounts where millions of dollars was allegedly paid into.

While describing the allegations as false, the house summarily cleared the NIMASA DG of these allegations.

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