Femi Falana, a senior advocate of
Nigeria (SAN), has asked the national assembly to work with anti-graft agencies
for the recovery of “$103.7 billion lost on oil sale”.
In a letter to Senate President
Ahmad Lawan, the senior lawyer said if Nigeria can recover the money lost to
oil sale, there would be no need to seek foreign loans.
Nigeria is currently planning to
secure the first tranche of a $3 billion loan from World Bank in April.
According to Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance,
who disclosed this, the facility is meant to improve the power sector.
But Falana said Nigeria lost a
larger part of the proceeds from oil as a result of the non-implementation of
the deep offshore and inland basin production contracts act.
“In his reaction to our
allegation of economic sabotage by the public officers who deliberately refused
to implement the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts
Act the immediate past Minister of State in the Ministry of Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachukwu admitted that the non implementation of the law by
some unnamed public officers had led to a loss of oil revenue of over $60
billion,” he wrote.
“But due to the reluctance of the
federal government to enforce the law the governments of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and
Rivers States instituted an action at the Supreme Court in 2016 to compel the
Federal government to recover the accrued royalties.
“In the judgment delivered in the
case on October 18, 2018 the Supreme Court directed the Federal government to
recover the royalties that had not been collected from the International Oil
Companies for the past 18 years. Based on the judgment of the apex court the
Federal government has demanded for the immediate payment of the sum of the sum
of $62 billion by the defaulting oil companies.
“But the affected oil companies
have filed fresh suits in the federal high court challenging the claim of the
federal government. It is hoped that the federal high court will speed up the
hearing of the new cases in view of the categorical pronouncement of the
Supreme Court on the right of the federal government to recover the outstanding
royalties.
“The National Extractive Industry
and Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has disclosed that sum of $22 billion and
N481 billion has been withheld from the Federation Account by the NNPC and some
oil companies. Without any justification whatsoever the federal government has
ignored the findings of the NEITI.
“If the National Assembly, under
your able leadership, is prepared to resist pressures from vested interests and
muster the political will to recover the said fund Nigeria will have no
business begging for foreign loans from China, African Development Bank and the
World Bank. Therefore, the National Assembly may wish to collaborate with the
anti graft agencies in the recovery of the said sum of $103.7 billion without
any delay.”
Falana alleged that in the course
of their work on leakages in the national economy, they also discovered that
sometime in 2006, the management of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) illegally
withdrew $7 billion from the nation’s foreign reserves and fixed same in 14
commercial banks.
He said Godwin Emefiele, CBN
Governor, had also ignored their demand for the recovery of $7 billion and the
accrued interests from the 14 commercial banks.
Apart from the expected revenue
of $1.5 billion from the implementation of the amended deep offshore and inland
basin production contracts act, Falana said the outstanding royalties, fixed
deposit and other funds withheld or diverted from the federation account are
not less than $103.7 billion.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com