He gave the charge when he inaugurated the National Economic Council (NEC), chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo with 36 state governors, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and other co-opted members as members.
It was discovered that out of the $8.1 trillion earned by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from 2012 to 2015, only $3.8 trillion was remitted to the Federation Account.
The NEC has therefore set up a four-member committee to look into the books and report back to its next meeting slated July 23.
The members of the committee as governors of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom states.
These were disclosed to the State House correspondents at the end of the meeting by Governors Abdulazeez Yari, (Zamfara); Adams Oshiomhole (Edo); Emmanuel Udom (Akwa Ibom) and Ibrahim Dankwanbo (Gombe).
The decision to investigate how the monies were spent came after the director in charge of funds at the Accountant-General’s Office briefed members of the NEC on both the Excess Crude Account, the NNPC account and the Federation Account.
Yari said, ”A four-man committee made up of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom was constituted to go through the books of NNPC and Excess Crude Account as well as the Federation Account.
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“The four man committee will check the books of NNPC most especially the issue of excess crude and what is not remitted into the Federation Account.
“The Federal Government in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will look inwards to see how to support how much they will give to states, how much they will give to states especially in the issue of outstanding salaries owed by the states and even the Federal Government”.
On the specific amount discovered, Oshiomhole said, “This is the first time we had a National Economic Council meeting in which under the instruction of the President, that the NNPC and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation were compelled to provide information in black and white on issues as they relate to the total sales of Nigeria’s crude from 2012 to May 2015. This has never happened before and for us this is profound.
“We are talking about transparency, we are talking about change. And what we saw from those numbers I believe that Nigerians are entitled to know, is that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned N8.1 trillion, what NNPC paid into the Federation Account from 2012 to May 2015 was N4.3 trillion.
“What it means is that NNPC withheld and spent N3.8 trillion.
“The major revelation here is that the entire federation that is the Federal Government, the states and all the 774 local governments, the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation Account for distribution to these three tiers of government came to N4.3 trillion and NNPC alone took and spent N3.8 trillion, which means the cost of running NNPC is much more than the cost of running the Federal Government. That tells you how much is missing, what is mismanaged, what is stolen, there are huge figures.
Oshiomhole said the governors were not saying that revenue generating agencies should not spend money but that they must return to budgeting.
According to him, “Let us also be clear, nobody says that parastatals should not spend money but they must return to budgeting. There is no major player, there is no major registered company that will spend money without a budget. Even a private company you will have your board of directors looking at your revenue, total sales, your turn over, your personnel cost, running cost, visible and invisible and you have the budget for the year that is how every sensible business runs. That is the way it was when President Buhari was minister of petroleum, so we are not reinventing the wheel, that is the way it used to be and that is the way the constitution says it should.
“We looked at the numbers for the Excess Crude Account, the last time the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, reported to the Council and it is in the minutes, she reported by November 2014, that we had $4.1 billion but today the Accountant General Office reported we have $2.0 billion, which means the Honourable Minister spent $2.1 billion without authority of the NEC. And that money was not distributed to states, it was not paid to the three tiers of government. This is why the NEC has set up a panel to look at what accrued, what was it spent for, when and by whom so that Nigerians will have the full picture of all the transactions as regards the much talked about Excess Crude”.
Also speaking on why the books are being examined, el-Rufai said, “The Excess Crude was started by President Olusegun Obasanjo around 2004-2005. I was part of the decision that led to the creation the Excess Crude Account. It was administrative arrangement to save for a rainy day. And it was meant to have very clear accountability such that every state and local government in a particular state knows their balance in the Excess Crude Account, though you can’t spend it but you know how much of it is yours. That was the arrangement. And in those days, before we spend any money from the Excess Crude Account, the federal and state governments will meet and agree.
“So the decision of the NEC is to set up this committee of four to look at the operations of the Excess Crude Account and make recommendation to council on its future.
“The other thing the committee will do is to look at the operations of the Federation Account particularly the shortfall and again come back to council with very clear recommendations as to what to do.
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