The House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil, amounting to over $2.4 billion and crude oil export to China from 2014-2016 said yesterday that it has uncovered payment for about $200 million allegedly made as consultancy fees in whistleblower recoveries by the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Abubakar Malami. within statutory approvals.
At the resumed public hearing on the issue, Mark Gbillah (chairman of the committee) said that Malami and Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed had not cooperated with them, failing to answer to issues arising from the crude sales, despite letters of invitation sent to them.
He said, “We have not been getting any form of cooperation from the Ministry of Finance and Attorney General’s office regarding this investigation, despite a series of correspondents sent to them on this matter we are investigating.
We’ve seen documentation from the Accountant General’s office, where the minister of finance approved the payment of the substantial amount of money to so-called whistle-blowers where details of monies recovered were not provided.
“’We’ve heard media reports by the Federal Government indicating that millions of dollars were recovered through whistle-blower revelations on behalf of the country, but we as a parliament have not seen that those monies were routed through the constitutional appropriation process before they were expended. The constitution is very clear about the receipt and expenditure of Nigeria’s money.
Gbillah, who expressed displeasure at the actions of the two public officers, however, appealed to them to cause an appearance before the committee or risk arrest.
“We’ve looked at the functions of the Attorney General’s office and we’ve not seen any statutory powers provided for the Attorney General by the constitution to determine how Nigeria’s money should be spent.
“There was an incident about a whistleblower, who made a formal report to Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, about $200million paid into two companies accounts, Biz Plus and GSCL, allegedly for consultancy services, which allegedly were approved by the Attorney General’s office on the approval of Mr. President.
“We need the Minister of Finance, and the Attorney General of the Federation to appear before this House to provide clarity on the inflows that have come in from whistle-blowers’ recoveries, and how these monies were recovered.
”The CBN is required to provide information that has been provided by these whistleblowers about substantial amounts of monies paid allegedly for consultancy services when there’s no record of any agreement entered into by those companies regarding any services.
“These are very weighty allegations and as a responsible House, we owe everybody a fair hearing and benefit of the doubt, and this is what we’ve been seeking to accord those who have been mentioned in these allegations.
