The House of Representatives has invited the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emiefele to justify the payment of over N32.5 billion to two companies; Messrs GSCL Consulting and Biz Plus without formal documentation.
Also invited in connection with the impropriety are the Auditor General of the Federation, the Accountant General of the Federation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Managing Directors of Exxon Mobil and Nigeria Agip Oil Company.
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The House ad-hoc committee, investigating the alleged loss of 48 million barrels of crude oil worth over $2 billion issued the summon at its resumed hearing, yesterday.
The Mark Gbillah-led Committee further summoned the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) over unremitted $1.67 billion and the former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
Gbillah said available records showed that CBN had paid N16.5 billion each to the two companies on the same day contrary to Malami’s earlier submission that he did not know about the payment.
“Because of lack of response to the committee invitations, summon had to be issued by the House to the Managing Director of Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Minister of Foreign Affairs, SNEPCO and SPDC, Auditor General for the Federation, Central Bank Governor because of their lack of appearance to issues requested by the House, GSCL Consulting Limited and Bizplus with regard to payment of N16.5 billion on the same day.
“So, the clerk should write a letter to the AGF to provide us with details of the approval for the engagement of the legal team and the related companies to carry out this investigation and provide us details of that legal team.
“In the letter, you request that the former AGF, former DG NIMASA also provide information on the status of this investigation and they will be invited in line with the submission of the report,” he directed.
The lawmaker also expressed dissatisfaction with the representative of Shell Petroleum Development Company, Igo Weli for lack of proper supervision.
Gbillah stressed that the about $1.7 billion judgement sum still outstanding for the Nigerian government to claim from a company found guilty of making false declaration about the crude oil taken from the country as stated by the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Bashir Jamoh belong to Nigerians.
“There exist about nine other cases with regard to alleged theft of Nigerian crude. This issue is not in our imagination. There is a formal legal judgement on this issue and there are cases still pending with regard to Nigerian crude.
“I call on the Tinubu administration, relevant stakeholders and the anti-graft agencies to realize that Nigerians are waiting for an explanation regarding why the $1.7 billion has not been recovered from Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept with regard to the judgement against them since 2020. This is money that belongs to all Nigerians and we expect that it should be appropriately accounted”, he said.
Addressing journalists after the hearing, the NIMASA boss, Jamoh said the agency was monitoring all the cases in court.
He said, “In 2013, when the revenue profile was low, NIMASA was directed from the Attorney General’s office to coordinate two technical teams to source data on the actual lifting of crude oil and the last destination point to see if there are any discrepancies.
“We discovered some discrepancies and worked with the legal team to look into the findings. From the findings, the legal team again discovered ten companies liable under declaration.
“We instituted cases against those companies. Most of the cases are still in court. We won one of those cases and a directive was given by the court that $1.7billion dollars be paid to the government.
“NIMASA and the Attorney General’s office continued to monitor the team of lawyers and in January this year, I wrote to them requesting for an update on the cases in court. What we discovered is that some cases are on appeal and for such cases, the legal team is working on that, while still following up on the ones still at the lower court.
“These cases are not instituted in Nigeria, but the destination where the criminal acts were committed.
The straight answer is that these cases are still in court and we have those that have not reached the stage of appeal yet.
“It is not only NIMASA and the attorney-general’s office that is interested in this matter. The EFCC is also interested because I know that they have been investigating and making sure that the companies involved are brought to book.”