Missing $20billion: Senate report clears NNPC and Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke

The Senate Committee on Finance which investigated the NNPC and Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezianni Allision-Madueke over allegations of fraud levelled against it by the suspended Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, Wednesday submitted its report to the Senate saying no funds were missing.

In its report, which was laid on the floor of the Senate, the committee stated that it could not see how the CBN Governor arrived at the figure of $49.8 billion in the first instance.

The committee in its findings stated that the CBN, NNPC, Ministries of Finance and Petroleum had resolved through reconciliation that $47 billion had been received into the federation account out of the total oil lifting valued at $67 billion dollars between January 2012 and July 2013.


The committee observed that that there is however a lack of proper and adequate coordination between the key government agencies such as CBN, NNPC, Ministries of Finance and Petroleum, FIRS and DPR.

It also noted that there is poor record keeping and non-challant work attitude by the NNPC for not rendering returns on subsidy claims on monthly basis from January 2012 to date which contributed largely to the creation of the problem at hand.

The committee recommended that the NNPC refund $262 million being expenses it could not satisfactorily defend in respect of holding strategic stock reserve, pipeline maintenance and management cost as well as capital expenditure.

The Senate Committee on Finance, under the chairmanship of Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi (Kaduna, PDP), took about 5 months to complete its assignment.

The committee also recommended that the subsidy regime be totally abolished and the Petroleum Industry Bill immediately passed (PIB).