Missing $ 49.8 billion: I Lied-Sanusi, CBN Governor Tells Senate

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has
said he did not say the truth when he alleged that the sum of $49.8
billion realized from the sales of crude oil between January 2012 and July
2013 has been missing from the federation account.
Sanusi who appeared before Senate Committee on Finance said $12 billion
was the amount not to have been remitted to the account within the period.
But the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala swiftly countered him.
The Minister of Finance, said “I just wanted to add that we found about
$10.8 billion. He mentioned $12billion.”
The now embarrassed CBN Governor told the Senator Ahmed Makarfi led
cCommittee, “I repeat, Mr. Chairman, that we did not see the letter as a
conclusion of our investigation but an invitation to investigate. So, the
conclusion that $49.8billion was missing was wrong even though we had the
allegation that it was unremitted.”
“Now, since then, a lot has happened. We have heard the Minister of
Finance, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Central Bank, FIRS, CPR, we have
set up technical team and has started a process of reconciliation and
there has been a lot of progress in that process.
“I found it very unfortunate it was leaked to the press and the answer is
‘yes’, the CBN Governor did send that letter with those contents. By way
of those contents, the Central Bank and Finance Ministry and the
government were very much concerned over the years at the very low rate of
accretion to the reserves in spite of very high level of oil prices and in
particular, depletion of excess crude account in spite of what seems to be
very high level of oil sales.
“Now, in investigation and trying to understand where those leakages were,
our attention was drawn to a huge difference between what appeared to be
export of crude made by NNPC and amount repatriated into the crude equity
account of the federal government.
“The numbers were about $65 billion exported by NNPC and about $15 billion
repatriated to Federation Account out of that. Now, in view with our duty
as the banker of the government, we had the responsibility of alerting the
president and request a thorough investigation of this matter, he said.
He further explained that “the major progress has been the provision of
Monetary Policy Committee, PMC, by the MPC documents to show that even
though they did ship that amount in question which is a little more $67
billion, about $24billion was actually not their crude but crude shipped
on behalf of third parties like oil companies, tax in crude and also for
third party financing and so, that already addresses half of the amount.”
“So, the second half is the issues around domestic crude lifting of
$28billion from which we feel there is a short fall, there is a general
consensus among us on this even though the amount has been disputed. For
us in Central Bank, there is a shortfall of $12billion”, he disclosed.
But even with the amount, he said the CBN was still in the process of
reconciling the amount.
“Now, we still are in the process of trying to reconcile that number and
we have not even started talking of the sales, the export sales tax, which
is about $2billion, which will come after the sales. The Finance Ministry
has told us that even before now, there is ongoing negotiation and
discretion with NNPC ad-hoc committee and these numbers have always been
discussed at the level of Commissions of Finance.
“Since the objective of this committee and for all of us on this side is
actually to get to the bottom of it and find out exactly what is the
amount unremitted and what is to be done and recommend actions.”
He pleaded for time so that the CBN, NNPC and all relevant agencies come
up with a collective figure.
“What I would like to do is, given the progress we have made, to request
that we be given little more time to continue with this process and come
back with the final position that is a common position among us if the
committee will so grant us, ”he added
He was subsequently granted
the request.
Speaking at the event earlier, Senate President, David Mark,noted that the
controversial amount was still allegation but stressed that it was a
serious one.
“At this point what we have is allegations but it’s a
serious allegation. When Senator Adetumbi raised the point of order, I did
not allow comment on the issue
“It’s for us to get facts so that when we come back we can make useful and
meaningful contributions. The Senate has no positions on it, nobody knows
apart from what was published in the papers, that’s why we want the
committee to establish the facts, the committee, your body language and
utterances must be seen to be totally neutral because we have no facts, we
have no position on it, we urge you to observe the facts, “he said.