This story beats my imagination and quite revealing, i thought i share it with you all. This is credited to the Premium times.....read further
President Goodluck Jonathan and two of his top ministers may be
attempting a cover-up on what clearly competes as Nigeria’s biggest
fraud ever, involving the illegal diversion, or theft, of over N8
trillion crude oil sales proceeds.
In a frantic and unusual memo to the president on September 25, 2013,
Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi detailed how
government-owned oil firm, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation,
NNPC, had systematically diverted the huge sum, being sales proceeds
between January 2012 and July 2013.
The CBN governor said for all crude oil sales within the period, the
NNPC paid only 24 percent proceeds into the federation account, and
diverted or stole the remaining 76 percent-totalling N8 trillion.
As the CBN calculated, the NNPC sold at least 594 million barrels of
oil within the period, and should have paid N10.3 trillion (USD65.3
billion) into the federation account. But the corporation paid only N2.5
trillion (USD15.5 billion), Mr. Sanusi said, citing documentation from
pre-shipment inspectors.
The whereabouts of the huge balance is unknown.
The weight of the differential is clearer if evaluated against the
fact that the tiny percentage remitted by the NNPC managed to finance
the nation in that period, raising the question of how much the total
would then have achieved for a country unable to pay its university
lecturers who have been on strike for five months.
Put simply, for each barrel of oil sold, say at an average of USD100,
the NNPC illegally cornered $74 into an unknown account and gave
Nigeria only $26.
Mr. Sanusi said he was “constrained” to hint the president after
observing the huge shortfalls for years. He accused the NNPC of
breaching two key federal laws, and urged the president to act
expeditiously by ordering sweeping investigation and prosecution of
those found culpable.
Two months on, the president has refused to act on the damning memo
delivered to him personally by the CBN governor. In fact, after
receiving the letter, the president, presidency sources say, questioned
Mr. Sanusi on why such letter should be prepared in the first place and
sent to him.
PREMIUM TIMES can also confirm that finance minister and former World
Bank chief, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is also aware of the CBN’s information
and has done nothing about it; while petroleum minister, Alison
Diezani-Madueke, implicated in several corruption probes in the past, is
said to be fully in the know about the massive plunder of crude oil
money by the NNPC.
President challenged on corruption
Details of the president’s failure to act on such a massive scale of
misappropriation came amid an increasing criticism of Mr. Jonathan’s
response to corruption, as several senior officials of his government,
accused of stealing or wasting public funds, have been spared of
indictment and prosecution.
The weightiest of such concerns came on Monday from the speaker of
the House of House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who publicly
accused the president of consistently displaying a “body language” that
encourages corruption.
Citing past scandals, the most recent being the N255 million armoured
car fraud involving aviation minister, Stella Oduah, Mr. Tambuwal said
the president’s penchant for duplicating committees to investigate
corruption cases, rather than directing law enforcement agencies to
probe them, showed Mr. Jonathan was less committed to curbing fraud.
“By the action of setting up different committees for straightforward
cases, the president’s body language doesn’t tend to support the fight
against corruption,” the speaker said at an event in Abuja.
Between 2011 and 2013, the House of Representatives has investigated
the NNPC multiple times, and has in many cases found officials of the
corporation wanting. But no one has been sanctioned by government.
In 2012, top management of the NNPC and the petroleum minister, Mrs.
Madueke, who directly supervises the NNPC, were recommended for
prosecution by the House in a shocking fuel subsidy probe. They accused
officials have remained at their posts.
The CBN’s allegation is the most scathing yet for a corporation notorious for secrecy and corruption.
The diverted or stolen amount-N8 trillion between January 2012 and
July 2013- is the nearly the equivalent of the total federal budgets for
two years.
Put together, the sum can run the entire country for the period,
build several new roads and railways, pay wages of millions of workers,
cater for the nation’s teeming unemployed, build thousands of hospitals
and schools, complete ongoing power projects, and on an urgent note,
clear multiple times, all government financial obligations to university
lecturers, whose ongoing strike has kept the universities shut for more
than five months now.
More losses and the ECA
Even so, when compared with prevailing data from different government
agencies, the figure admitted by the CBN is still lesser than what
Nigeria should earn from oil sales.
While the bank said its computation, based on pre-shipment details,
showed that Nigeria sold N10.3 trillion worth of oil in 19 months,
PREMIUM TIMES’ analysis shows the government should rather realize N10.6
trillion in the first 10 months of 2013-Janaury to October-alone.
PREMIUM TIMES’s estimates is based on the government’s data of daily
production average of 2.11 million barrels of crude, sold at an average
price of $105.84 per barrel.
If multiplied and converted to naira, the government should have realized N10. 6 trillion in 10 months alone.
But in that period, total oil receipts data provided by the Office of
the Accountant General of the Federation, claimed between January and
October, the government made N5.8 trillion.
Also, our estimates show that the government has not only lied or
misled Nigerians about its total receipts from oil sales, but is also
deceitful about its earnings in the contentious Excess Crude Account.
The ECA holds the difference between the real market price for oil
and the government’s projection in the national budget yearly.
For 2013, the government approved rate is $79 per barrel (called
benchmark for oil price), meaning any raise in price at the
international marker, will go into the ECA.
For most of the year, oil sold as much as $112 and $114 per barrel.
At a conservative rate of $105 per barrel, the government should have
realized $26 as difference per barrel for the Excess Crude Account.
Calculated at 2.11 million barrels per day, that should amount to
$17.3 billion (about N2.695trillion) earned as excess crude revenue from
crude oil exports as of October 2013.
But the government claims it generated only N986.6 billion in the Excess Crude Account.
No explanation
No government official could explain the huge gaps for the 2013
figures. The ministry of finance did not comment when contacted multiple
times. Paul Nwabuiku, a spokesperson for the finance minister, Mrs.
Okonjo-Iweala, promised a response but refused to give one several days
after.
A spokesperson for the Central Bank of Nigeria, reacting to our
findings (not Mr. Sanusi’s letter) said as the government’s banker, it
could not provide the requested information, as it was unlawful for a
banker to divulge details about its customer to a third party.
“We maintain a customer/banker relationship with the government in
the execution of our mandate. We do not divulge such information to
third parties,” Mr. Ugochukwu said on Thursday via a text message.
Controversy over Excess Crude Account
PREMIUM TIMES’s own evaluation of government oil earnings began well
ahead of obtaining Mr. Sanusi’s letter to President Jonathan.
The review was prompted by the lingering controversy over the ECA
between the finance minister, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala and the Rivers state
governor, Chibuike Amaechi.
Mr. Amaechi had accused the government of depleting the account,
usually shared between the federal, states and local governments.
The governor said $5 billion had gone missing from the account under Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s watch.
Defending the administration, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala accused the governor
of “playing politics” on the matter, and said the outstanding $5
billion had been shared to states as monthly allocation and local
governments, with Rivers State being one of the major beneficiaries.
The frustration of CBN governor
But in his letter, Mr. Sanusi said he had long been frustrated by the
NNPC’s secrecy with oil sales, and that he raised concerns twice to the
president as far back as 2010 about his observation that a huge chunk
of sales proceeds were not remitted to government treasury.
He said the shortfall in revenue as a result of oil theft and
vandalism in the Niger Delta was insignificant compared to the scale of
money unaccounted for by the NNPC.
“Your excellency, you will recall that as far back as late 2010, I
had verbally expressed deep concern about what appeared to be huge
shortfalls in remittances to the federation account in spite of the
strong recovery in oil prices,” the CBN governor wrote, indicating the
losses extending years back far surpasses the N8 trillion of between
2012 and 2013.
There is no evidence the president acted on those concerns.
By 2012, he said the situation had gone worse that the government
made more money from tax paid by oil companies than from actual sales of
crude.
“This means, Your Excellency, that in this first seven months of the
year, taxes accounted for 76 % of the total inflow from this sector,
while NNPC crude oil proceeds accounted for 24%,” he said.
The CBN governor called for a thorough audit of all domiciliary
accounts held by the NNPC outside of the CBN, and a probe of companies
involved in oil lifting and oil swap.
“As banker to the federal government and Economic Adviser to the
President,” he said, “I am obliged to draw the president’s attention to
these serious issues of which you have most probably never been aware in
this detail,” he said.
The Special Adviser to the President on Public Communications, Reuben
Abati, was not available for comments. He did not answer several calls
made to his telephone. He is believed to be travelling in South Africa
with the president, who is attending the funeral of late South African
President, Nelson Mandela.
ABAKALIKI-
GOVERNOR Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State yesterday called for the
disbandment of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU in the
country, following its alleged antecedent of sabotaging the effort of
governments in the area of education and provision of infrastructural
facilities to institution of higher learning.
The
governor made the call during an interactive session with members and
executives of the state chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists,
NUJ.
He described ASUU’s action as a sabotage of the education
sector and the corporate existence of country; stressing the need for
the union to always consider the future of students while taking steps
to contribute its quota towards the improvement of the education sector.
He said: “The major victims of this strike are not government but the students and things are not what they should be.
“ASUU
is due for proscription; the way they are going is sabotage to the
existence of the country. When I travelled I heard that lecturers had
resumed in EBSU; my plan was that if any lecturer is to resume he or she
is to renounce their membership of the union.
“At a point in time, history must change if not we will keep drifting; in EBSU, it is still a case of no work no pay.”
On Ebonyi indigenes who were disengaged from Abia State civil service,
the governor noted that the state had no covenant with the affected
workers that they would be reabsorbed into Ebonyi State civil service.
He noted that what was necessary was for the state to ensure that their retirement benefits were duly paid to them.
It should be recalled that over 80 Ebonyi indigenes who were disengaged
from Abia State civil service had staged a peaceful protest at
Government House, Abakaliki, and other relevant government agencies in
the state in 2010.
The indigenes, who were mostly from Ebonyi
South and North senatorial districts of the state were seen carrying
placards with various inscriptions, such as ‘a sojourner has a home’,
‘we have come home for sense of belonging’, ‘Ebonyi state, salt of the
nation, we embrace you’, East or West, North or South, Home is better’,
Governor T.A. Orji says no to two dual citizenship, His Excellency,
Ebonyi state Governor, kindly receive your people’ moved around the
vicinity, chatting songs to reflect their state of despondency.
Spokesman
of the group, Mr. Okoro Chibuike Uduma, pointed out that the reason
they were disengaged was because the governor of Abia State, Chief
Theodore Orji, wanted to implement the payment of the N18, 000 minimum
wage for only indigenes of his state.
According to him, most of
them were disengaged from Abia State Local Government Education
Authority, local government councils, among others.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/12/elechi-calls-scrapping-asuu/#sthash.Z3b27KND.dpuf
ABAKALIKI-
GOVERNOR Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State yesterday called for the
disbandment of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU in the
country, following its alleged antecedent of sabotaging the effort of
governments in the area of education and provision of infrastructural
facilities to institution of higher learning.
The
governor made the call during an interactive session with members and
executives of the state chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists,
NUJ.
He described ASUU’s action as a sabotage of the education
sector and the corporate existence of country; stressing the need for
the union to always consider the future of students while taking steps
to contribute its quota towards the improvement of the education sector.
He said: “The major victims of this strike are not government but the students and things are not what they should be.
“ASUU
is due for proscription; the way they are going is sabotage to the
existence of the country. When I travelled I heard that lecturers had
resumed in EBSU; my plan was that if any lecturer is to resume he or she
is to renounce their membership of the union.
“At a point in time, history must change if not we will keep drifting; in EBSU, it is still a case of no work no pay.”
On Ebonyi indigenes who were disengaged from Abia State civil service,
the governor noted that the state had no covenant with the affected
workers that they would be reabsorbed into Ebonyi State civil service.
He noted that what was necessary was for the state to ensure that their retirement benefits were duly paid to them.
It should be recalled that over 80 Ebonyi indigenes who were disengaged
from Abia State civil service had staged a peaceful protest at
Government House, Abakaliki, and other relevant government agencies in
the state in 2010.
The indigenes, who were mostly from Ebonyi
South and North senatorial districts of the state were seen carrying
placards with various inscriptions, such as ‘a sojourner has a home’,
‘we have come home for sense of belonging’, ‘Ebonyi state, salt of the
nation, we embrace you’, East or West, North or South, Home is better’,
Governor T.A. Orji says no to two dual citizenship, His Excellency,
Ebonyi state Governor, kindly receive your people’ moved around the
vicinity, chatting songs to reflect their state of despondency.
Spokesman
of the group, Mr. Okoro Chibuike Uduma, pointed out that the reason
they were disengaged was because the governor of Abia State, Chief
Theodore Orji, wanted to implement the payment of the N18, 000 minimum
wage for only indigenes of his state.
According to him, most of
them were disengaged from Abia State Local Government Education
Authority, local government councils, among others.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/12/elechi-calls-scrapping-asuu/#sthash.Z3b27KND.dpuf
