Lamido Sanusi Reverses Self,Says NNPC Is Witholding $12b Not $49b

Lamido Sanusi Reverses Self,Says
NNPC Is Witholding $12b Not
$49b
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido
Sanusi, told the Senate on Wednesday that the
reconciliation of accounts being carried out by the apex
bank, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Ministry
of Finance had shown that only $12bn was yet to be
reconciled instead of the $49.8bn he claimed was missing
from the Federation Account.
His submission was promptly faulted by the Minister of
Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala,  who told the Senate
Committee on Finance at a public hearing, which was also
attended by the Petroleum Resources Minister,  Mrs. Deziani
Alison-Madueke, that records in her ministry showed that it
was $10.8bn that had not been fully reconciled.
The whole nation was thrown into confusion last week
when Sanusi, through a letter to President Goodluck
Jonathan, raised the alarm that $49.8bn being part of the
proceeds of crude exported by the Nigeria National
Petroleum Corporation between January 2012 to July 2013,
had yet to be remitted to the Federation Account.
The development was brought before the Senate by Senator
Olubunmi Adetunmbi, which made the upper legislative
chamber to ask its committee on finance to investigate the
allegation.
The committee members, stakeholders and others, who
attended the public hearing, which was declared open by
Senate President David Mark, were astonished when Sanusi
said the appreciable results had been achieved in the
reconciliation of the accounts.
He said the fact that he raised the alert about the alleged
missing money was not a conclusion that the money was
diverted but that he was merely performing his roles as
bankers to the Federal Government.
He said, “The governor of central Bank did send that letter
with those contents because the CBN, the finance ministry
and the federal government were very concerned overs the
years by the very low rate of accrution to reserves,
particularly the depletion of the excess crude account
inspite of what seemed to be very high level of oil sales.
“Now, in investigating and trying to understand where the
revenue leakages were, our attention was drawn to the huge
difference between what appeared to be exports of crude
made by NNPC and the amount repatriated into the crude
account of the Federal government.
“The numbers were $65bn exported by NNPC and $15bn
repatriated to the Federation account out of that. Now in
keeping with our duty of bankers to the government, we
have the responsibility to alert the president and request a
thorough investigation of this matter.”