‘Missing’ $20bn still not addressed, says Sanusi

Muhammadu Sanusi, the emir of Kano, has yet again drawn attention to the $20 billion which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) allegedly failed to remit into the federation account, lamenting on the current state of the economy.

The immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had raised the allegation late 2013, presenting a document of more than 300 pages as evidence for his claim.

However, two months after, he was suspended from office on allegations of financial recklessness and misconduct and was not reinstated till his tenure ended in June.

The government subsequently contracted Pricewaterhousecoopers to audit NNPC account and the firm submitted a report, which required the corporation to remit $1.48bn to the federation account.

But Sanusi appears being dissatisfied with the outcome of the process.

“I raised a number of issues that I think have not yet been discussed and addressed sufficiently,” he told Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international correspondent.

“I think these issues reflect unconstitutional and illegal withholding of revenues from the federation account.

“My position in the Central Bank was that there was always this gap of $20 billion after reconciliation between what the NNPC exported and what it deposited into the federation account. After reconciliation, it could amount to $14 billion or $12 billion. The petroleum sector is a major drain on the resources of the country and this has to be looked at

“One of them is the billions of dollars being paid in kerosene subsidies without appropriation by the national assembly and against a presidential order and we don’t know who authorised those payments and yet no one has owned up to say I authorised the payments, I made a mistake.

“It must stop. I think those issues need to be addressed and until we address them and begin to close all the loopholes in government revenues, we are going to continue to create opportunity for the destruction of the economy.”

Sanusi further said whoever emerges victorious at the forthcoming election has a lot of issues to deal with, particularly the economy.

“The state cannot exist to make a few people very rich. Corruption is an old story in Nigeria, we need to do something about corruption if the country must survive,” he said.

“The country is paying the price today; oil prices have crashed, the currency has been devalued, the stock market has collapsed, government revenues are in a very bad shape.

“Whoever wins, whether this government or the opposition, will have to deal with these issues.”