Nigeria audit into 'missing' oil revenues imminent as poll looms

Date: 2015-02-06

Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president, has received a long awaited audit into billions of dollars of allegedly “missing” oil revenues just 11 days before a closely fought presidential election.

The auditor general was asked to release key findings of the audit “within a week”, Nigerian media reported.

The long delayed completion of the report coincides with a growing furore in the final days of campaigning over Mr Jonathan’s stewardship of Africa’s largest economy, which has been battered since last year by the falling price of oil, billions of dollars of foreign investment outflows and a depreciating currency.

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), whose presidential candidate, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, has positioned himself as a strongman who can rein in corruption and end Nigeria’s terrorist insurgency, is calling for the report to be published in full ahead of the February 14 polls.

PwC, the international accountancy firm, was commissioned to carry out the audit last March after Lamido Sanusi, then governor of the Central Bank, publicly questioned discrepancies of more than $1bn per month between oil sales and income.

Mr Sanusi warned that the alleged shortfalls — up to $20bn between January 2012 and July 2013 — meant that the country’s foreign reserves were under pressure, even though Nigeria should have been benefiting from the soaring price of oil and saving against an eventual fall.

The allegations prompted a political storm in Nigeria. Following the revelations, Mr Jonathan suspended Mr Sanusi, now the Emir of Kano, before his term as governor ended last June.

The president described the PwC report, which was commissioned on the advice of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister for finance and the economy, as “voluminous”.

“The auditor general will have a look at it and within a week let us have key highlights because the media will want to the know the key findings,” he said, and pledged to push through oil industry reforms that have been held up in the National Assembly for years.

But the APC insists that the entire audit, rather than just “key findings”, should be made public. The party has made curtailing mismanagement and fraud a centrepiece of its campaign to prise power from the People’s Democratic Party in what are expected to be the closest elections since Nigeria’s transition from military rule in 1999.

“Our position is that a full report should be submitted to the public. Everyone should see it to reassure us that there is nothing they are hiding,” said Bukola Saraki, an APC senator who sat on the senate committee investigating Mr Sanusi’s allegations last year.

The controversy surrounding missing oil revenue was revived again last week when another former central bank governor, Charles Soludo, wrote a long public treatise alleging that an even larger sum than $20bn had been squandered, prompting a furious public response from Mrs Okonjo-Iweala.

Experts on Nigeria’s troubled oil industry said the audit is unlikely to provide final clarity over how much went missing because it had narrow terms of reference. It covers some of the money Mr Sanusi suggested was owed to the treasury but does not address opaque crude oil swaps — where crude oil is exchanged for refined petroleum imports without cash changing hands — or the legality of production agreements which Mr Sanusi contended had transferred control of revenues and profits from state-owned assets into the hands of private companies.

“The key questions relating to crude oil swaps and strategic alliance agreements that Sanusi raised were not on the table,” one expert said.

Source

 

Cloud Tag: What's trending

Click on a word/phrase to read more about it.

Igosun     Aro Yahaya     Cornelius Fawenu     Hameed Oladipupo Ali     Abdulrazaq Sanni     Seni Saraki     Illyasu Abdullahi     Mustapha Akanbi     Bayer Nigeria Limited     Makama Of Ilorin     Oniwa     Al-Hikmah Radio     Idris Garuba     Oloje     Abdullahi Saadudeen Alikinla     Yashikira     Sayomi     Tafida Of Ilorin     NIPR     Okiki     Shehu Salau     Oniye     Ganmo Electricity Sub-Station     Kwara Liberation Group     Communication Network Support Services     Veterinary Teaching Hospital     Otuka     Simon Sayomi     Jumoke Monsura Gafar     Oladimeji Thompson     Bisi Oyeleke     Aliyu Muhammed     Isiaka Oniwa     Gobir     Eghe Igbinehin     AGF Abdulrazaq     Oke-opin     Manzuma     Lanre Badmus     Abdulazeez Arowona     Oyin-Zubair     Medinat Folorunsho Salman     Adedipe     Khadijat Ayoola Yusuf     Emir Of Lafiagi     Salihu Jibril Garbi     Alanamu     Abraham Ojo     Tinubu     Kisira     Balogun Fulani     Ajike People Support Centre     Ibrahim Abdulkadir Abikan     IF-K     Kwara Hotel     CT Ayeni     Sambo Murtala     Agor Market     Amuda Bembe     Abdulquawiy Olododo     Yahaya Oloriegbe     Oye Tinuoye     Bola Shagaya     Garba Ayodele Wahab     Peter Amogbonjaye     Nurudeen Mohammed     The Herald     Coronavirus     Yahaya Abdulkareem Babaita     RTEAN     Suleiman Rotimi Iliasu     Edret Sabi Abel     Mahmud Ajeigbe     Fola Consultant     Ayedun     Ajase-Ipo     Oba Sulaiman Asude    

Cloud Tag: What's trending

Click on a word/phrase to read more about it.

NYSC     CBT     Saadatu Modibbo-Kawu     Amina Susa\'a De Ahmed     Alabi Olayemi Abdulrazak     Ethical College     Lukman Adeloyin     Ridwan Agboola     Kulende     Oloriegbe     Ibikunle Ogunleye     Moses Afolayan     Tinubu Legacy Forum     Abdulrazaq Sanni     Lithium     Vasolar-Kwara Company Ltd     Awili Pedro     Toun Okewale-Sonaiya     KWASSIP     Kwara-SAPZ Project     Razak Atunwa     Tsaragi/Share     Abatemi Usman     Abdullahi Samari     Ayinde Oki     Bibire Ajape     Baboko     Ajayi Okasanmi     Hameed Oladipupo Ali     Abdulkadri Ahmad Alaiye     Ibrahim Mashood     Madawaki     Sam Okaula     Waziri Yakubu Gobir     Offa Descendants Union     Lanre Olosunde     Kwara Pdp     Bareke     Saduki Lafiagi     Ilorin East     Yusuf Abubakar     Abdulrahman Abdulrasak     Babaloja-General     Yusuf Babatunde Abdulwahab     Tunde Yusuf     Micheal Imodu-Ganmo Road     JSSCE     Dan Iya Of Ilorin     Baruten     Umaru Saro     Olayinka Olaogun     Samuel Olusegun Adedayo     The Herald     Jamiu Oyawoye     Ilorin Muslim Community     James Ayeni     Goodluck Jonathan     Magaji Are     Saadu Gbogbo Iwe     Iqra Books     Abdulmumin Yinka Ajia     Yaman     CCB     KWACOBPA     Susan Modupe Oluwole     Muhammad Ghali Alaaya     Suraj Tunji Oyewale     Okin High School     Peter Amogbonjaye     Salau Kabiru Abdullahi     Agbarigidoma     Share/Tsaragi     Chief Imam Of Lafiagi     Bureau Of Lands     GGDSS Pakata     KWTV     NNPP