Lawmakers probe missing 48 million barrels of crude oil

The House of Representatives committee investigating the alleged sales of 48 million barrels of crude oil has summoned the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed.

The committee also summoned the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission, Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Index (NEITI), and oil and gas companies.

The ad hoc committee, chaired by Mark Gbillah, on Tuesday issued the summons at its inauguration sitting.

Speaking on the failure of the officials to honour the invitation of the committee, Mr Gbillah said there are allegations against Ms Ahmed of breach of the Whistleblower policy of the government. He said the minister has been paying whistleblowers less than the recommended rate prescribed by the policy.

“Unfortunately, the honourable minister of finance is not here, the attorney-general of the federation is not here, and this is a formal request from the committee that they appear before this committee because they have received a formal invitation to do so and a lot of what we have to investigate regards to the whistleblower policy is saddled within the ministry of finance and the attorney-general of the federation.

“The responses we have received from the Accountant-Genaral office which shows that the honourable minister of finance has been approving payments to whistleblowers in percentages at variance with what the policy says they should be paid,” he said.

He said the AGF on the other hand has been accused of receiving money from outside the country without remitting same to the Federation Account.

“They have been allegations of the attorney-general being involved also in the receipt of funds from outside the country without these funds being remitted into the federation account in line with the provisions of the constitution.

“And there have been allegations that expenditures of these recoveries have also been done in complete violation of the provision of the constitution,” he said.

Mr Gbillah also disclosed that the committee has intelligence that ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have not been complying with the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

He said all the officials concerned must appear before the committee to give clarification.