Senate Hearing: Sanusi Insists $20b Is Missing, Okonjo-Iweala Unable To Prove How $10.8b Was Spent

                                  Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

Day Two of the investigative hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance into the alleged missing $20 billion oil money has concluded in Abuja, with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, insisting the money is missing according to a live blogging of the hearing by Premium Times of Nigeria.

Speaking to the committee, he said that despite the explanation tendered by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, there is an outstanding $20 billion between what NNPC oil shipments and what it paid to government.

Mr. Sanusi insists the outstanding $6 billion given by NNPC to the NPDC should have gone to the federal government, but that it disappeared into private hands from there, and offered to bring in lawyers to defend that claim on the basis of three advisory opinions the CBN has already received.

Testifying earlier, Okonjo-Iweala aligned herself with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC, despite declaring her Ministry lacked the capacity to validate the claims contained in NNPC documents from the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) showing how the initial outstanding $10.8 billion was spent.  She said an independent forensic team was needed to examine the documents.

Concerning the $6 billion which Mr. Sanusi said the NNPC diverted into private pockets, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala also said that finding out who owns the money would require an independent legal opinion.

But also testifying Andrew Yakubu, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, basically advised Nigerians to forget about ever seeing the N10.8 billion in question or wasting their time looking for it, declaring it has been “spent on subsidy, pipeline maintenance and other losses.”

“The impression Nigerians have is that $10.8 billion is seated in the four towers of the NNPC [offices],” he said, underlining that the money is gone.

SaharaReporters gathered that  representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had agreed to present a united from today at the Senate claiming that the ministry was “satisfied” with the NNPC explanations regarding the missing funds.

However, they could not carry out the plan as CBN officials refused to sign the agreement; also the minister of State for Finance, Lawal Ngama reportedly refused accepting the reconciled figures. He was fired yesterday by President Goodluck Jonathan.

President Jonathan, the Finance minister, Okonjo-Iweala and the Petroleum Resources minister,  Alison-Madueke , who rushed back from London yesterday, have reportedly resolved to prolong the investigations by bringing in forensic expert pending the time the CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi could be completely sidelined.