EXPOSED: N1.76trn Paid in Subsidy in 2011 Alone, CBN Tells House of Reps Committee

Members of the ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives probing the federal government’s so-called subsidy on petrol had to brace themselves today as a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Kingsley Moghalu, told them N1.76trn was the total amount paid on it in 2011 alone.  

Mr. Moghalu’s testimony is in line with previous accounts which described an inexplicable and whopping increase in the spending on the item under Mr. Jonathan.
Mr. Moghalu, who was representing CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, explained, however, that the role of the bank in fuel subsidy management is limited to ensuring ensure monetary and price stability.  It is not involved in paying the subsidy, he said.  
He also told the committee that the level of the subsidy went up eight-fold in 2009, totaling over 110 percent.  By October 2011, it hit over 500 percent.

Asked why there was a sudden increase in subsidy payment, Mr Moghalu suggested “likely manipulations,” as previously observed by other senior officials of the government who have testified before the committee, but that the Central Bank lacked concrete evidence “because we are not EFCC.” 
Also queried on who authorizes payment of the subsidy, he said that was the purview of the fiscal authorities.

EXPOSED: The IMF and AFRICOM Join Hands To Rob the African Continent

• Lagos Dissents Under IMF Hegemony 
• Nigeria: The Next Front for AFRICOM

On a recent trip to West Africa, the newly appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde ordered the governments of Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad to relinquish vital fuel subsidies. Much to the dismay of the population of these nations, the prices of fuel and transport have near tripled over night without notice, causing widespread violence on the streets of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and its economic center, Lagos. Much like the IMF induced riots in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, public discontent in Nigeria is channelled towards an incompetent and self-serving domestic elite, compliant to the interests of fraudulent foreign institutions.

Although Nigeria holds the most proven oil reserves in Africa behind Libya, it’s people are now expected to pay a fee closer to what the average American pays for the cost of fuel, an exorbitant sum in contrast to its regional neighbours. Alternatively, other oil producing nations such as Venezuela, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia offer their populations fuel for as little as $0.12 USD per gallon. While Lagos has one of Africa’s highest concentration of billionaires, the vast majority of the population struggle daily on less than $2.00 USD. Amid a staggering 47% youth unemployment rate and thousands of annual deaths related to preventable diseases, the IMF has pulled the rug out from under a nation where safe drinking water is a luxury to around 80% of it’s populace.

Although Nigeria produces 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day intended for export use, the country struggles with generating sufficient electrical power and maintaining its infrastructure. Ironically enough, less than 6% of bank depositors own 88% of all bank deposits in Nigeria. Goldman Sachs employees line its domestic government, in addition to the former Vice President of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is widely considered by many to be the de facto Prime Minister. Even after decades of producing lucrative oil exports, Nigeria has failed to maintain it’s own refineries, forcing it to illogically purchase oil imports from other nations. Society at large has not benefited from Nigeria’s natural riches, so it comes as no surprise that a severe level of distrust is held towards the government, who claims the fuel subsidy needs to be lifted in order to divert funds towards improving the quality of life within the country.

Like so many other nations, Nigerian people have suffered from a systematically reduced living standard after being subjected to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP). Before a loan can be taken from the World Bank or IMF, a country must first follow strict economic policies, which include currency devaluation, lifting of trade tariffs, the removal of subsidies and detrimental budget cuts to critical public sector health and education services.

SAPs encourage borrower countries to focus on the production and export of domestic commodities and resources to increase foreign exchange, which can often be subject to dramatic fluctuations in value. Without the protection of price controls and an authentic currency rate, extreme inflation and poverty subsist to the point of civil unrest, as seen in a wide array of countries around the world (usually in former colonial protectorates). The people of Nigeria have been one of the world’s most vocal against IMF-induced austerity measures, student protests have been met with heavy handed repression since 1986 and several times since then, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. As a testament to the success of the loan, the average laborer in Nigeria earned 35% more in the 1970’s than he would of in 2012.

Working through the direct representation of Western Financial Institutions and the IMF in Nigeria’s Government, a new IMF conditionality calls for the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Olusegun Aganga, the former Nigerian Minister of Finance commented on how the SWF was hastily pushed through and enacted prior to the countries national elections. If huge savings are amassed from oil exports and austerity measures, one cannot realistically expect that these funds will be invested towards infrastructure development based on the current track record of the Nigerian Government.

Further more, it is increasingly more likely that any proceeds from a SWF would be beneficial to Western institutions and markets, which initially demanded its creation. Nigerian philanthropist Bukar Usman prophetically writes “I have genuine fears that the SWF would serve us no better than other foreign-recommended “remedies” which we had implemented to our own detriment in the past or are being pushed to implement today.”

The abrupt simultaneous removal of fuel subsidies in several West African nations is a clear indication of who is really in charge of things in post-colonial Africa. The timing of its cushion-less implementation could not be any worse, Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency after forty people were killed in a church bombing on Christmas day, an act allegedly committed by the Islamist separatist group, Boko Haram. The group advocates dividing the predominately Muslim northern states from the Christian southern states, a similar predicament to the recent division of Sudan.

As the United States African Command (AFRICOM) begins to gain a foothold into the continent with its troops officially present in Eritrea and Uganda in an effort to maintain security and remove other theocratic religious groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army, the sectarian violence in Nigeria provides a convenient pretext for military intervention in the continuing resource war. For further insight into this theory, it is interesting to note that United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvaniaconducted a series of African war game scenarios in preparation for the Pentagon’s expansion of AFRICOM under the Obama Administration.

In the presence of US State Department Officials, employees from The Rand Corporation and Israeli military personnel, a military exercise was undertaken which tested how AFRICOM would respond to a disintegrating Nigeria on the verge of collapse amidst civil war. The scenario envisioned rebel factions vying for control of the Niger Delta oil fields (the source of one of America’s top oil imports), which would potentially be secured by some 20,000 U.S. troops if a US-friendly coup failed to take place At a press conference at the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, AFRICOM Commander, General William Ward then went on to brazenly state the priority issue of America’s growing dependence on African oil would be furthered by AFRICOM operating under the principle theatre-goal of “combating terrorism”.

At an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller openly declared the guiding principle of AFRICOM was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests. After the unwarranted snatch-and-grab regime change conducted in Libya, nurturing economic destabilization, civil unrest and sectarian conflict in Nigeria is an ultimately tangible effort to secure Africa’s second largest oil reserves.

During the pillage of Libya, its SFW accounts worth over 1.2 billion USD were frozen and essentially absorbed by Franco-Anglo-American powers; it would realistic to assume that much the same would occur if Nigeria failed to comply with Western interests. While agents of foreign capital have already infiltrated its government, there is little doubt that Nigeria will become a new front in the War on Terror.

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Source: Nile Bowie via InformAfrica.com

EXPOSED: The damning KPMG Report FG, NNPC, do not want Nigerians to See

As far as the 41-page report is concerned, the NNPC is a cesspool of monumental corruption and fraud

On Thursday December 1, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, cringed when the senate joint committee investigating the management of funds set aside for petroleum subsidy handed her a seven-day ultimatum to produce a secret forensic report on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in her custody.

The audit, done for her ministry by renowned audit and advisory consultancy, KPMG, which exposed the massive financial malfeasance and monumental corruption in the NNPC, is one document the federal government, the petroleum ministry and the NNPC have worked hard to conceal for a little over a year now.

The report, which could trigger a fierce face-off between the federal and state governments, is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Nigeria today.  It contains shocking details of how the NNPC, and by implication, the federal government has been swindling the states.

So when the committee requested Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala to produce it, she became a bit uneasy, knowing that doing so might embarrass the administration and spark some troubles for the NNPC, a source close to her told the Times. Initially the minister didn’t make any commitment, but when pressed by committee members, she reluctantly acceded to the request.

It is not known at press time whether she has sent the document to the committee. Contacted yesterday, her spokesperson, Paul Nwabuikwu, said he had no information on the matter.  Calls to the chairman of the senate joint committee, Magnus Abe (PDP, Rivers), were unanswered. But as at noon today, long after the ultimatum given to Mrs. Okonjo-iweala expired, a source close to the committee said the minister was yet to make the report available. He said there was high-powered lobby by the NNPC not to make the document public.

The damning report

But the Times has scooped the report for you in case the minister fails to produce it or does so to the committee in camera.

As far as the 41-page report is concerned, the NNPC is a cesspool of monumental corruption and fraud. The report detailed the corporation’s sharp business practices, violation of laid down rules and regulations, illegal deductions of funds belonging to the state, and failure to account for several billions of naira that should go to the federation account.

The agency, the report says, has also severely defrauded our country in subsidy claims. Auditors found that between 2007 and 2009 alone, the NNPC over-deducted funds in subsidy claims to the tune of N28.5bn. It has not been able to account for the sum ever since.

The over-deduction from its remittance to the federation account for 2010 and 2011, believed to be in several billions of naira, is not captured in the report.    

The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Finance, hired KPMG and another Nigerian auditing firm, S.S. Afemikhe & Co., in July 2010, to look into the books of the corporation following allegations of “wrongful deductions at source by the NNPC to fund its operations” by the 36 state governors.

There were also concerns at the time that “the procedures for managing and reporting the country’s crude oil and gas revenues are opaque and characterized by gaps, overlaps and inconsistencies in the role of key parties responsible for the assessment, collection and reporting on these revenue streams.”

Officials of the petroleum ministry and the NNPC, a source at the finance ministry disclosed, developed cold feet after the auditors were sent in, and indeed tried hard to frustrate the representatives of the two audit firms by failing to supply evaluation criteria for commercial bids submitted in respect of petroleum products importation.

Believing that would turn the auditors away, our source further explained, the corporation also failed to provide them with other relevant documents such as the criteria for allocation of products and product volumes to importers/suppliers and periodic prequalification lists of approved products importers/suppliers.

But in spite of the difficulty they faced, the auditors were able to determine that the NNPC had been anything but transparent in the management of our country’s oil resources.

The report that emerged from the audit was just too damning that the leadership of the petroleum ministry, the NNPC and some few other elements in the Federal Government have worked hard to keep it away from the 36 state governors and federal lawmakers in particular and Nigerians in general.

Stealing the states blind

In what is likely to anger state governors, the audit established that the corporation was in the habit of arbitrarily estimating subsidy claims and then over-deducting funds from proceeds of domestic crude sales.

“For example,” the report said, N25bn was deducted as subsidy estimate for September 2009 from domestic crude sales proceeds while PPPRA approved a subsidy of N23.8bn. N35bn was also deducted as subsidy estimate from November 2009 but PPPRA approved of N21.3bn.”

 The auditors’ analysis indicates “over-deduction for these two months amounted to N14.9bn. However, only N4.2.bn was swept into the Federation Account by the NNPC as adjustment for subsidy claimable in the two months.” That is beside the N11.8bn subsidy claim the NNPC claimed it paid for imported products that didn’t reach consumers.

 State governors have always complained that the NNPC was shortchanging them through illegal deductions from revenues payable to the federation account.

Fraudulent underhand tactics

Over-deduction is however not the only way the corporation is defrauding the federal and state governments. According to laid down regulations, the NNPC is invoiced in dollars for domestic crude allocations but is expected to remit the equivalent naira value to the Federation Account. But auditors found to their chagrin that in doing that, the corporation used exchange rates far lower than those published by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Using this “fraudulent underhand tactics”, the NNPC succeeded in cheating the three levels of government of a whooping N85.2bn in three years – N25.7bn in 2007, N33.8bn in 2008 and N26.7bn in 2009.

When the auditors requested explanations for these exchange rate disparities, the NNPC claimed it obtained the exchange rates it used from the CBN via telephone.

The report also severely indicted the NNPC over the shoddy and non-transparent manner it renews crude sale contracts every year. The auditors noted that “evaluation criteria for renewal of contracts are not clearly stated in the contract document”, and that the selection exercises were based on individual discretion and wrong assumptions and criteria.”

The NNPC claimed that renewal of contract was based on performance of off-takers (buyers). But the auditors observed that the basis and process for determining performance were not clearly defined.

The auditors wondered why in 2007 and 2008, some companies not on the approved list of buyers for that year were allocated crude, a practice the examiners believe led to crude being sold to non-credible buyers, even with relevant guarantees and safeguards not implemented.

Specifically the auditors queried the allocation of crude to Ovlas Trading (2, 852,316 barrels in 2007 and 906, 269 barrels in 2008) Petrojam (2,818,914 in 2007), Oil Fields (950,166 barrels in 2007) and Zenon (906,000 barrels in 2008) even when they were not on the list of authorized buyers for that year.

Contracts for the importation of products, the auditors wrote, were also routinely awarded without regard for approved guidelines and procedures. “We observed that contracts for the importation of petroleum products were awarded to companies and suppliers not listed in the approved prequalification list used for the fourth quarter 2008 importation,” the report noted.

The auditors specifically queried the award of contracts in that manner to Astana Oil Corporation Limited, Natural Energy and Oando, when they were not prequalified for patronage that year.

Among other forms of misdemeanour, ranging from poor accounting to shoddy record keeping, the auditors also indicted the corporation for leaving its own storage facilities, unused, and then proceeding to incur additional cost from leasing of third party storage facilities.

The auditors reported that DPK tanks (with storage capacity of 18,000 cubic metres) at the PPMC depots within the Mosimi Area had not been used for three years even though there were in good condition. Yet the corporation, the examiners added, had been leasing storage facilities from third parties.

The spokesperson of the NNPC, Levi Ajuonuma, declined to comment on the report, saying he had nothing to say until the government releases it officially.

Credit: Musikilu Mojeed via Premium Times 09/12/2011 10:12:00