Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Lamido Sanusi
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation has said it never received any presidential order to stop
subsidy payment on kerosene during the late President Umaru Yar’Adua
administration.
The acting Group General Manager, Public
Affairs Division, NNPC, Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, told Saturday PUNCH in
Abuja on Thursday that the corporation should not be blamed for not
implementing the directive on kerosene subsidy because the NNPC did not
get any instruction to end subsidy payments on kerosene.
He said, “The point of contention is
about kerosene subsidy. We do not doubt that there could be a directive.
But what the NNPC is saying is that it is one thing for the President
to give a directive, it is another thing for the directive to be
communicated down to the various agencies of government.
“The communication line in matters like
this is between the President and the minister. And the minister will
direct subsidiaries or parastatals working under the ministry. So in a
situation where a directive was given by the President to a minister,
then for reasons that are best known to the minister or the ministry,
that information was not communicated to the parastatals, then you can’t
hold us responsible for not implementing the directive. As far as we
are concerned, we have not received the directive.”
He argued that the NNPC was a structured organisation and would not take decisions based on “hearsay.”
Asked to comment on the allegedly
missing $20bn, Ibrahim said the corporation would be able to reconcile
its account before the end of the week. According to him, the NNPC would
brief the Senate on its findings soon, stressing that “a large chunk of
this amount is what we are reconciling now and we believe that by the
end of the week, we should be able to give our report to the Senate.”
But sources at the corporation told one
of our correspondents in Abuja that the CBN governor’s statement on the
directive mandating the petroleum ministry to stop subsidy on kerosene
was true.
Senior management sources at the
corporation faulted the then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mr.
Rilwanu Lukman, for not conveying the directive of the late President
Musa Yar’Adua to agencies and parastatals under the ministry.
An official who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, said, “I will
give you the background. This is something we are going to present to
the National Assembly. It is true that in 2009, President Yar’Adua gave a
directive. His principal secretary wrote him a memo which he approved
that subsidy on kerosene be eliminated.
“When this was brought to the attention
of the Minister of Petroleum Resources at that time, he immediately
consulted with the finance minister, the economic adviser to the
President and a number of other people.
“The Petroleum Resources minister said
if government was retaining subsidy on petrol, it would not make
political sense to eliminate subsidy on kerosene. This is because
petrol is elitist, but kerosene is used to cook essentially by the
masses. So they decided that they would bring this to the President’s
attention.”
The source explained that the group argued that if kerosene subsidy was to be eliminated, then subsidy on petrol should go too.
“When this was brought to the attention
of the minister of petroleum at that time, he immediately consulted with
the finance minister, the economic adviser to the president and a
number of other people.’’
The official said, “As a result of that
decision among these members which included the economic adviser to the
president, the Minister of Finance, Minister of Petroleum Resources and
the NNPC GMD, they agreed to go back to the President.
“Of course if the President had insisted
on the decision after the scheduled meeting, they would have abided by
it. But unfortunately they couldn’t go back to the President because
that was about the time his ailment worsened. So they never really got
the time to go and sit with him on this matter.’’
He further explained, “When the
directive was given to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, he did not
write formally to the NNPC. So what that means is that even if the GMD
was aware of this directive, it was not addressed to him, it was
addressed to his boss. It was the job of his boss to now direct him
formally or communicate that directive to him. Up to this minute, we
have not received in the NNPC GMD’s office a letter or an instruction or
a memo saying that ‘stop kerosene subsidy.’’
The Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, had on Tuesday said that the NNPC had yet
to remit to the Federation Account $20bn out of the $67bn it realised
from crude oil sale on behalf of the Federal Government.
According to Sanusi, the NNPC had explained that 80 per cent of the money yet to be repatriated was spent on kerosene subsidy.
He however faulted the NNPC’s claim,
stressing that a presidential directive since 2009 had mandated the
corporation to stop subsidy on kerosene.
Sanusi said, “I have submitted to this
committee a written evidence of a presidential directive eliminating
subsidy since 2009 and the NNPC needs to provide its authority for
buying kerosene at N150 and selling at N40, and inflicting that loss on
the federation.”
But Saturday PUNCH learnt that the Presidency had decided to ignore the CBN governor over his claim on the missing fund.
A top Presidency source told one of our
correspondents in Abuja on Thursday that President Goodluck Jonathan was
not favourably disposed to joining issues with Sanusi.
He said the Presidency was aware that
the CBN governor was being used to present the government in a bad light
and would not dignify him with a response.
The source said, “I can tell you that
the Presidency will not join issues with Sanusi on this matter. After
all, he has said his tenure will end in June. Let’s see how it goes.
“By virtue of his position, the CBN
governor is more like an adviser to the President. Have you ever asked
yourself why a government employee will decide to go out and be painting
the government he is serving in such a bad light?
“Even before he made this last
allegation, the Presidency was already aware that he would talk in that
manner. Don’t forget that it is one year to election. He is definitely
working for some people.
“It will be unfair to the President if
you expect him to begin to join issues with Sanusi, his employee, on the
pages of newspapers.’’
When asked whether Jonathan was not
thinking of summoning the CBN governor and the NNPC boss on the
matter, the source said, “ You will agree with me that he does not need
to begin to tell Nigerians on the pages of newspapers that he will
intervene.’’
Efforts to get the Special Adviser to
the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, to comment were
unsuccessful as he could not be reached at the time of filing this
report.
Meanwhile, the committee set up by the
Federal Government to reconcile the unremitted oil revenue by the NNPC
will submit its report to the government next week.
A top government official confirmed the development on Thursday in Abuja.
The official, who pleaded not to be
named as he was not officially permitted to speak on the issue, said the
report would also be made available to both the National Assembly and
the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee.
FAAC committee, headed by the Minister
of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, is made up of commissioners of
finance from the 36 states, the Accountant General of the Federation,
Mr. Jonah Otunla, as well as the NNPC representatives.
Others are representatives of the
Federal Inland Revenue Service; the Nigerian Customs Service; Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission.
The source said the report of the
reconciliatory committee on missing oil revenue would be extensively
discussed at the FAAC meeting, adding that this would help to deal
decisively with the issues concerning returns from revenue agencies,
especially the NNPC.
Efforts to get the comments of the
Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on the missing oil revenue proved
abortive as her spokesman, Mr Paul Nwabuikwu, did not respond to
enquiries from one of our correspondents.
However, the minister had said in the
course of the reconciliation of oil revenues covering January 2012 to
July 2013 that a shortfall of about $10.8bn (N1.7tn) was recorded from
the domestic crude oil receipts.
She said while the shortfall had been acknowledged by the NNPC, its magnitude was still being disputed by the corporation.
She had said, “The finance ministry and
the NNPC have been in discussions to reconcile; we do so every month
after Federation Accounts Allocation Committee. We reconcile our
figures, it is not an easy thing.
“The Federal Ministry of Finance has
played its role by bringing all parties to the table to agree and
discuss the outstanding funds that should be remitted to the government.
“The next stage of this discussion is to
ensure that these funds are paid into the federation account.
Unfortunately, newspaper headlines will not bring money into the
government coffers.
“What will actually bring in the money
is the hard work of completing the reconciliation exercises to find out
what the NNPC has spent on its operations with supporting invoices and
documentation and what has to be remitted to the treasury.
“This is the work we are actually doing now. It has not been completed, so claims by any parties in this exercise are premature.
“Let me be absolutely clear about this;
the ministry of finance under my stewardship will always stand for
accountability and for ensuring that monies that belong to the treasury
are paid in or at least accounted for.”
Meanwhile, the CBN has insisted that
there is a presidential directive eliminating the subsidy payment on
kerosene from July, 2009.
A senior official of the bank also
confided in one of our correspondents that a copy of the directive had
been submitted to the National Assembly investigative committee on the
unremitted oil revenue.
The source said that a 20-page memo with
30 appendices, providing documentary backing for all material
statements had been provided by the apex bank governor to the committee.
Calls put through to the CBN spokesman,
Mr Ugochukwu Okoroafor, did not go through. Similarly, a text message
sent to his mobile phone was not replied to as of the time of filing
this report.
Source PUNCH.
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