The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating alleged crude oil sales revenue loss has summoned the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami to appear before the committee as part of it’s ongoing investigation.
Also summoned are the acting Accountant General of the Federation, Sylva Okolieaboh; and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), among others.
The directive was given by the committee chairman, Mark Tersee Gbillah, yesterday in Abuja at the resumed hearing on alleged revenue loss from the alleged sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil barrels sold in China, exposed by whistleblowers.
The committee is investigating the alleged loss of over $2.4bn in revenue from illegal sale of crude oil export in 2015, “including crude oil exports from 2014 till date”.
According to Gbillah, the committee gave the summon in order to know the roles being played by finance ministry and the agencies as regards the whistleblower policy particularly on how whistleblowers were being treated or paid.
He said,” It’s unfortunate that the minister of finance is not here, the Attorney General of the Federation is not here.
“This is a formal request from the committee that appears before this committee because they have received formal invitation to do so.
“And a lot of what we have to investigate regards to whistleblower policy is saddled within the ministry of finance and the Attorney General of the Federation.
“There are responses received from the Accountant General’s office which shows that the minister of finance has been approving payments to whistleblowers in percentages at variance with the policy which says they should be paid.
The chairman further said that there have been suspicions that the attorney general participated in receiving money from abroad without transferring it to the federation account as required by the constitution and allegations have been made that the expenditure of these monies was done completely against the Constitution.
He added that the CBN provided the committee with a written statement in which it stated that the administration’s agencies operate their Treasury Single Accounts (TSA) and make expenditures from the accounts without contacting the CBN.
“So we are inviting minister of finance, the attorney general of the federation, Secretary to the government of the federation and stakeholders involved in the implementation of the whistleblower policy to appear before the committee to provide clarification on the operation of this policy and the approvals being made by the finance minister.
