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• How Alleged ‘Missing’ $10.8 Billion Was Spent, By NNPC
THOUGH President Goodluck Jonathan may not have the powers to remove the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), there is no law that debars the President from suspending a governor of the CBN.
A source told The Guardian yesterday in Abuja that though the presidency is miffed by the action of the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, over his letter to the President on the alleged missing $48.9billion, the President is said not to be in a hurry to remove Sanusi.
The Guardian gathered that the President is reluctant to remove the Kano-born financial expert and a Prince of Kano Emirate for political expediencies.
It was argued that though it is the National Assembly that is empowered to remove a sitting CBN governor by two-third majority vote, the President indeed has the power to suspend the apex bank’s helmsman.
The source said: “It is wrong to believe that the President would be helpless if he wants to replace the CBN governor. The power to suspend is not outside of the President’s reach. But what is the sense in removing a governor that has six months to go and who is going on terminal leave in March? The CBN governor knows he has no say if he is instructed to proceed on leave in March. It is statutory to go on accumulated leave few months before leaving office by chief executive officers of government agencies and parastatals. Even the CBN governor knows he erred in rushing to the President to report the issue of $48.8billion. Does Nigeria earn that amount in three years? He has the contacts of Ministers of Finance and Petroleum Resources and even that of the Group Managing Director of the NNPC. What stopped him from raising it first?”
This comes as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), for the umpteenth time, said the N10.8 billion is no longer in dispute, saying the money was spent on operational costs which are not captured either in the budgetary provisions or in the subsidy payment template of the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) template.
The Group Executive Director, Finance and Accounts Directorate of the NNPC, Dr. Bernard Otti, who stated this yesterday at a media briefing, explained that the sum is expenditures incurred as part of statutory responsibilities which the NNPC, as the National Oil Company, executes on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Otti pointed at the NNPC as the last resort in the petroleum products supply chain, unpaid subsidy, maintenance of national strategic reserve, cost of pipeline and crude oil theft as process that are covered under any headings, which NNPC is entitled to defray as part of operational costs that are legalised under the NNPC Act.
He revealed that subsidy claims figure stand at $8.49billion; pipeline management and repair cost at $1.22billion, while product and crude losses and holding the strategic reserve cost $0.72billion.
Otti added: “It is on record that for many years now, NNPC has been the main supplier of products to the nation. Most of these products are imported at international prices but sold at regulated prices. The Corporation has successfully kept the nation wet with products, especially PMS, for the past three years as can be verified from the absence of queues at petrol stations during the normal festive seasons. It is significant to note that the government has not made any payments to the Corporation in the name of subsidy during the period under review. The unpaid subsidies from government to the Corporation constitutes a significant portion of the yet-to-reconciled $10.8billion.”
Providing explanation on the need for the NNPC to maintain a national strategic reserve, Otti stated that the NNPC maintains huge petroleum products reserves on land and in the national territorial waters, adding, “the resort to keeping strategic reserves on the waters, with its attendant costs is the result of pipeline vandalism which has made access to most of the inland storage facilities impossible.”
He further highlighted that for the purpose of strategic reserve, at the rate of 40million litres of PMS national consumption per day, the NNPC maintains about 32 days sufficiency of petrol.
Otti stressed that though successive governments have put in policies to stem the tide of oil theft and pipeline vandalism, the stretch of over 5,000 kilometres of pipelines in the country were still prone to attacks.
He insisted that that NNPC has the legal backing for its operation adding, “whatever expenditure we have incurred in the discharge of the above national responsibilities are backed by the law setting up the Corporation.”
Source: Guardian
