The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petition has issued a warrant for the arrest of the Central Bank Governor (CBN), the Accountant General of the Federation, and 17 others for failing to appear before the committee to answer questions about their operations.
The decision to issue the arrest warrant was made on Tuesday after a motion was moved by Rep. Fred Agbedi (PDP-Bayelsa) during the committee’s hearing.
Agbedi argued that the arrest warrant was necessary due to the “attitude” of the invitees, who had been invited four times but had failed to respond.
The committee chairman, Rep. Michael Irom (APC-Cross River), ruled that the Inspector General of Police should ensure that the CEOs are brought before the committee on December 14.
The petitioner, Mr. Fidelis Uzowanem, had earlier stated that the petition was based on the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report of 2021. He alleged that the report was a “consolidation of fraud” that had been going on in the oil and gas industry.
Uzowanem provided specific examples of alleged fraud, including the payment of cash core to companies that did not produce crude oil. He also alleged that NNPCL had used cash core payments as a channel for laundering funds.
“We took up the challenge to examine the report and discovered that what NEITI put together is a report is only consolidation of fraud that has been going on in the oil and gas industry.
“It dates back to 2016 because we have been following and we put up a petition to this committee to examine what has happened.
“The 2024 budget of 27.5 trillion that has been proposed can be confidently be funded from the recoverable amount that we identified in the NEITI report.
“It is basically a concealment of illegal transactions that took place in NNPCL, they have been in sync with some oil companies where some companies that did not produce crude were paid cash core, an amount paid for crude oil production,” he said.
He added: “We also found that the cash core payment was use as a channel for laundering funds by NNPCL and we found out that NEITI was able to conceal it in its report.
“In 2021 NEITI reported that Total Exploration and Production Nigeria-Ltd was paid 168 million dollars but examination of submission by the company shows that it received 292 million dollars.
“In other words, 124 million dollars was laundered by NNPCL through Total because monies that have been officially paid to Total could not have been concealed if it were not meant for fraudulent purposes.
“Also for Chevron, the dollar payment NEITI puts forward in its report was 76 million dollars but document emanating from Chevron showed that they received as much as 267 million dollars.”
“In other words, 191 million was laundered under the cover of Chevron and NEITI concealed that; also, Nigeria Agip Company received 188 milliom dollars but none of it was reported by NEITI”.
The committee has also issued arrest warrants for the CEOs of NAPIMS, Ethiop Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd, and Western Africa Exploration and Production.
