MISSING $49.8BN: CBN GOVERNOR MAKES U-TURN

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, yesterday, reversed initial position that 49.8 billion dollars realized from the sales of crude oil between January 2012 and July 2013 was missing.

Sanusi had averred that the revenue was expected to be remitted to the federation account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

Appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, Mallam Sanusi regretted that his communication to the president was leaked to the public.

He said the letter did not indicate that the CBN had concluded its investigation on the matter but fort the President to direct investigation into the matter. 

“The numbers were about $65 billion exported by NNPC and about $15 billion repatriated to Federation Account out of that. Now, in view with our duty as the banker of the government, we had the responsibility of alerting the president and request a thorough investigation of this matter, he said.

He further explained that “the major progress has been the provision of Monetary Policy Committee, PMC, by the MPC documents to show that even though they did ship that amount in question which is a little more $67 billion, about $24billion was actually not their crude but crude shipped on behalf of third parties like oil companies, tax in crude and also for third party financing and so, that already addresses half of the amount.”

“So, the second half is the issues around domestic crude lifting of $28billion from which we feel there is a short fall, there is a general consensus among us on this even though the amount has been disputed. For us in Central Bank, there is a shortfall of $12billion”, he disclosed.

But even with the amount, he said the CBN was still in the process of reconciling the amount.

“The numbers were about $65 billion exported by NNPC and about $15 billion repatriated to Federation Account out of that. Now, in view with our duty as the banker of the government, we had the responsibility of alerting the president and request a thorough investigation of this matter, he said.
He further explained that “the major progress has been the provision of Monetary Policy Committee, PMC, by the MPC documents to show that even though they did ship that amount in question which is a little more $67 billion, about $24billion was actually not their crude but crude shipped on behalf of third parties like oil companies, tax in crude and also for third party financing and so, that already addresses half of the amount.”
“So, the second half is the issues around domestic crude lifting of $28billion from which we feel there is a short fall, there is a general consensus among us on this even though the amount has been disputed. For us in Central Bank, there is a shortfall of $12billion”, he disclosed.
But even with the amount, he said the CBN was still in the process of reconciling the amount.
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Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was also on hand to further clarified the situation.

Earlier, President of the Senate, David Mark explained that the controversial amount was still allegation which must be clarified.