Udora Orizu in Abuja
The House of Representatives, yesterday, summoned the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emiefele for explanation over N32. 5 billion said to have been paid to two companies, Messrs GSCL Consulting and Biz plus without formal documentation.
Others summoned were the Auditor General for the Federation, the Accountant General of the Federation, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Managing Directors of Exxon Mobil and Nigeria Agip Oil Company.
The summons was handed down by the chairman of the Ad-hoc committee of the House providing the alleged loss of 48 million barrels of crude oil worth over 2 billion dollars, Hon. Mark Gbillah at its resumed hearing.
Also summoned were Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) over unremitted $1.67 billion, just as the former Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami was also re-summoned by the committee.
According to Gbillah, available records revealed that CBN paid N16.5 billion each to the two companies on the same day contrary to Malami’s earlier submission that he didn’t know about the payment.
He added: “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 clerk you do a letter to AGF to avail us detail 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.”
Gbillah also expressed displeasure with the representative of Shell Petroleum Development Company who identified himself as Igo Weli for lack of proper supervision.
Responding to an earlier remark by the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Bashir Jamoh, who appeared before the committee about a $1.7 billion judgement sum still outstanding for the Nigerian government to claim from a company that was found guilty of making false declaration about the crude oil taken away from the country, Gbillah said the money belonged to the Nigerian people.
Speaking with newsmen thereafter, the NIMASA DG further said that 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 of 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.”
