The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi Wednesday told the Senate that the much publicized missing $49.8 billion from the Federation account is not true after all.
Mr. Sanusi, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance that is investigating the alleged non-remittance of the sum of $49.8 billion into the Federation n account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said it was his error, clarifying that there was no missing money.
The Senate recently directed its committee on Finance chaired by Ahmed Makarfi to investigate the alleged missing money, following a Point of Order on Matter of Urgent National Importance raised by Olubunmi Adetunmbi (APC-Ekiti).
He had argued that since the laws stipulate that proceeds from the sale of crude should be lodged in the CBN, the NNPC should be investigated for the alleged non-remittance of the said amount between 2012 and 2013.
The CBN Governor confirmed to the Committee that, indeed, he raised the alarm about an unremitted money into the CBN account by the NNPC in a letter addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan dated 25th September.
However, Mr.Sanusi said he only said that there may have been unremitted monies into the federation account not that a huge sum was missing.
He therefore, pleaded with the Senate to allow the stakeholders- Ministry of Finance, CBN and NNPC to reconcile their books.
The CBN Governor said, “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.
“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.
“This is 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.”
The CBN boss, however, said that a lot had happened since the letter became public and that all stakeholders involved were working together to rectify the situation.
“We (the Minister of Finance, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Central Bank, FIRS, DPR) have set up technical team which has started a process of reconciliation and there has been a lot of progress made.”
“The major progress has been provision of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) by MPC officials to show that even though they did ship that amount in question which is a little more $67billion.
“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 that already addresses half of the amount.
He said the second half was the issues around domestic crude lifting of $28billion from which the stakeholders felt there was a short fall,” Sanusi said.
He however, enjoined the committee to give the stakeholders (CBN, Finance Ministry and NNPC) more time to resolve the issues.
He spoke further, “We need a little more time since the objective of this committee and for all of us 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.”
On his part, Minister of Finance Dr Ngozi Okonjo -Iweala, told the committee that only $10.8 billion and not $12 billion needed to be reconciled.
Speaking, Ahmed Makarfi, who chairs the Finance Committee, asked the Ministry of Finance and the CBN to in earnest reconcile their books.
According to him, “Right now, you can see that still between you, you still have some differences.
” First of all, from my understanding, the CBN Governor has said that he didn’t say money was missing but there may be unremitted revenue. Whether that revenue is kept somewhere is to be established.”
