By Charles Onwuatogwu
While the controversy over the missing $ 20 billion from the federation accounts as alleged by the Governor of the Central bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, still rages arguments and counter arguments have been raised in respect of the actual sum outstanding.
One thing is undisputed from the claims and counter claims from the different quarters and that is that some money is actually unaccounted for or yet to be accounted for by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The crux of the matter being the actual sum involved.
While the Central Bank governor insists a total sum of $ 20 billion is missing, the coordinating minister for the economy and the minister of Finance, Dr. (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala maintains only a sum of $ 10.8 billion is outstanding.
Whilst stating that her ministry played a major role in reconciling the revenue shortfall to the outstanding $10.8 billion at a forum of South-south professionals in Lagos recently, Okonjo-Iweala said “we have the Federation Accounts Committee, FAAC, which is chaired by the minister of state for Finance with state commissioners for finance, NNPC and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS as members. Whenever there is a case of revenue questions, we turn to the FIRS and the NNPC for explanations , and we don’t need to make noise about it on the pages of the Newspaper.”
Though one cannot not agree less with the coordinating minister on the resort to the pages of the newspaper, it is not improper to state however that the CBN governor could have sought clarifications from the relevant ministries and parastatals before the public pronouncement on the pages of the Newspaper, non-the-less the CBN governor may have simply served as the whistle-blower.
This brings me to the recent invitation of Forensic Auditors to verify, and get to the roots of the persistent allegation of a missing $20 billion from the oil accounts and determine the actual sum outstanding.
Announcing the appointment of the forensic auditors at a press briefing on Thursday, after her appearance before the senate’s Finance Committee which had commenced investigations into the alleged missing funds, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala maintined that “The oil account is a very complex business,” she said. “For example, oil is lifted to pay back what is called “carry arrangement” in which oil is supplied for loans taken by NNPC in the past and is to be paid back in crude oil to those creditors who gave NNPC those loans. So when you look at it, someone can say there is a missing x number of barrels which should have been accounted for.
But it is used in paying for debt owed by the NNPC. That is why we are asking for forensic audit so that we can have all these things clearly verified. You can’t just look at the balance of payment numbers – you will not get it right. Those are some of the reasons why we said it is a complex issue.”
While Nigerians look up to the experts to examine the accounts give them the result, it is pertinent to sound a note of warning at his punt which is that the exercise should and must be conducted in a most professional manner and Nigerians must be ready to accept the outcome of the exercise devoid of politicization.