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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