The National Economic Council, chaired by
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday accused a former Minister of
Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy under ex-President
Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, of spending $2.1bn from the
Excess Crude Account without authorisation.
“We looked at the numbers for the Excess
Crude Account. The last time the former Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, reported
to the council, and it is in the minutes, she reported by November 2014
that we had $4.1 bn.
“Today,
the Accountant-General Office reported we have $2.0bn. Which means the
honourable minister spent $2.1bn without authority of the NEC and that
money was not distributed to states, it was not paid to the three tiers
of government,” Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole told State House
correspondents after the NEC’s 58th meeting in Abuja.
The ‘unauthorised’ spending, according to
the economic council, is among the several anomalies discovered in the
management of the nation’s economy between 2012 and May 2015.
Within the period, the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation was said to have earned a total of N8.1 tn but
remitted only N4.3tn.
Consequently, the Federal Government has
constituted Oshiomhole, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai; Akwa Ibom
State Governor, Udom Emmanuel; and Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim
Dankwambo, into a panel to probe the NNPC and the ECA between 2012 and
May, 2015.
Oshiomhole, el-Rufai, Emmanuel and the
Zamfara State Governor, Abdulazeez Yari, jointly briefed journalists at
the end of the meeting.
Yari told the journalists, through the
Director of Funds, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation,
Mr. M.K. Dikwa, that council members received the report of the ECA and
unremitted funds by the NNPC.
He said, “On that line, a four-man
committee consisting of the governors of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa
Ibom states was constituted to go through the books of the NNPC and
Excess Crude as well as the Federation Account.
”The four-man committee will check the
books of the NNPC, most especially the issue of excess crude and what is
not remitted into the Federation Account.
“The Federal Government, in conjunction
with the Central Bank of Nigeria, will look inwards to see how to
support and how much they will give to states, especially on the issue
of outstanding salaries owed by the states and even the Federal
Government.”
Shedding new light on what transpired at
the NEC meeting, Oshiomhole said the NNPC and the Office of the
Accountant-General of the Federation were compelled for the first time
to provide information on the total sales of Nigeria’s crude from 2012
to May 2015.
The Edo governor said, “We are talking
about transparency; we are talking about change. And what we saw from
those numbers, which I believe that Nigerians are entitled to know, is
that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned N8.1tn, what NNPC paid into
the Federation Account from 2012 to May 2015 was N4.3tn.
“What it means is that the NNPC withheld and spent N3.8 tn.
“The major revelation here is that the
entire federation, that is the Federal Government, the states and all
the 774 local governments, the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation
Account for distribution to these three tiers of government came to N4.3
tn and the NNPC alone took and spent N3.8tn.
“This means that the cost of running the
NNPC is much more than the cost of running the Federal Government. That
tells you how much is missing, what is mismanaged and what is stolen.
There are huge figures.”
Oshiomhole said the only lawful way
decreed by the Constitution was that if the NNPC needed to spend money,
it needed to prepare its budget like every other business enterprise,
get it scrutinised by the executive and then forward same to the
National Assembly for appropriation.
He added, “If the Federal Government cannot spend without appropriation, why should any agency spend without appropriation.
“This is what the Constitution provided
for and this is what President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to do;
henceforth all money must go to the Federation Account.
“If you were doing that, you would not
have a situation where the NNPC alone will spend N3.8trn and remit to
the federal, states and local governments N4.3trn, which means NNPC is
taking about 47 per cent and that explains all the leakages you are
talking about.”
El-Rufai recalled that he was part of the
decision to put in place the ECA during the tenure of former President
Olusegun Obasanjo between 2004 and 2005 as an administrative arrangement
to save for a rainy day.
He said the account was set up in order
to be accountable such that every state and local government would know
what they had in the account though they could not spend it.
He said, “The Excess Crude Account is 52
per cent owned by the Federal Government and 48 per cent owned by the
states and the local governments.
“So the decision of the NEC is to set up
this committee of four to look at the operations of the Excess Crude
Account and make recommendations to council on its future.
“The other thing the committee will do is
to look at the operations of the Federation Account, particularly the
shortfall and again come back to council with very clear recommendations
as to what to do.
“We have not been given a time frame but
as you can imagine state governments are under pressure, many of our
state governments are unable to pay salaries on time without recourse to
borrowing, so this is very important to us.
“This is an all-governors’ committee; we
wear the shoes and we know where they pinch. So we are going to do this
as quickly as possible.
“The next meeting of the council is on
July 23; we hope to complete our work and be in a position to report to
council on that day. So within the next one month, we will be done by
God’s grace.”
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