Senate summon CBN Governor over missing $9.5 Million

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has given the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, up till Thursday to appear before it.

This is following the consideration of a report by Auditor-General for the Federation over the alleged disappearance of $9.5m interest accrued from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) investment which was adopted by the Committee led by Senator Mathew Urhoghide.

Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) is a tax applicable to upstream operations in the oil industry.

According to the query that emanated principally from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, while the sum of $9.5m interest accrued from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) investment, the principal sums deposited, the tenor and rate of interest have been allegedly kept secret

The report read in part: “During the examination of transfers to Foreign Excess PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Accounts, it was observed that during the year 2016, amount totalling $6 million and $3.5 million were credited to the Foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Account as interest on funds investments.

“The authority for placing the funds which yielded the above interests totalling $9.5 million in deposit account, the principal sums deposited, the tenor and rate of interest were not made available for audit verification.

“This observation had also been a subject of my reports since 2017 without any positive response from Central Bank of Nigeria.

“Records made available for audit further revealed that the balance in the foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude accounts as of 28th December 2016 were USD0.00 and USD251,826 respectively.”

This suggests the Foreign PPT/Royalty was depleted before the year-end.

“The Accountant General has been requested to provide the authority for the funds invested, the tenor of the investment, rate unrest payable, certificate for the funds invested and forward same for audit verification.”

Senator Urhoghide said Mr Emefiele must appear in person to respond to corroborate some statements of account.