BEVERLY HILLS, CA, March 26, (THEWILL) – As the Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, is billed to defend allegations of reckless spending of N10 billion on a chartered jet, the House of Representatives joint committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream and Upstream) and Judiciary Wednesday summoned her over yet another allegation of diversion of 500,075,239.3 litres of petroleum products worth $8 billion in 2011.
The House committee issued the letter of summon to the minister during the ongoing probe into the “alleged connivance by NNPC with Swiss oil dealers to rob Nigeria of billions of dollars.”.
Chairman of the joint committee, Hon. Muraino Ajibola, who gave the order Wednesday said the committee want to give the minister, just like others, fair hearing.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) had in its report submitted to the House accused four oil traders of under-delivered 500,075,239.3 litres of products worth $8 billion in year 2011.
The indicted companies according to the NEITI report are Trafigura (173,786,600 litres); Vitol (654,440.7 litres); Taleveras (152,308,878 litres); Aiteo Nigeria Limited (193,046,590 litres) and Ontario Oil and Gas (180,278,732 litres).
Meanwhile, other indicted companies testifying at the ongoing investigative public hearing on the ‘crude swap undersupply of petroleum products under the subsidy regime’ are Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Ontario, Aiteco, Vitol, PPPRA, Mercuria Energy and Eterna Oil and Gas.
First to appear before the joint committee Wednesday was the, MD/CEO Ontario Oil and Gas Limited, Ada Ugo-Ngadi, who was earlier arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and failed to justify the quantity of crude oil lifted against the refined products supplied during the period under review.
The Ugo-Ngadi, who explained that the selection of buyers of Nigerian crude was done on a transparent and competitive basis, noted that “Ontario’s SWAP arrangement with NNPC/PPMC is in line with international standard, transparent and complies with all audit requirements,” adding “It is transparent and conducted in line with global best practice.”
According to her, “The publication is a figment of the writers’ imagination seeking to distract Nigerians and cause distrust of indigenous oil companies. It is baseless, faulty and deserves no serious attention.”
While testifying, representatives of AITECO Energy Resources, Mr. Nnamadi said the company lifted a total of 10,231,122 barrels of crude oil valued at $1.170,732,027.62 and supplied refined products worth $1,111,972,698.18.18 in year 2011.
He added that “At the last reconciliation exercise with PPMC, Duke Oil/Aiteco Energy Resources Ltd had lifted 26,425,738 barrels of crude oil from 2011; valued at $3,010,308,113.08 and supplied refined products valued at $2,976,663,203.01” as at June 2013.
Nnamadi said the value of the demurrage expense incurred by Aiteco Energy Resources Ltd from 2011 to June 2013 and reimbursement by PPMC was $60.269 million.
But the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in its submission dismissed the exchange rate quoted by NEITI in its report to the National Assembly, adding that “the NNPC’s lifting’s of crude oil are normally received by the CBN into NNPC account three months after the lifting’s”.
The CBN, via a letter with reference No: GVD/DGO/CON/GOV/01/016 dated March 24, 2014 signed by Kingsley Moghalu, Deputy Governor (Operations) dismissed the rates presented by NEITI in its report to the National Assembly.
Part of the letter read : “The average exchange rates presented by NEITI in its report to the National Assembly are not CBN quoted rates. CBN does not use average rate in conducting monetisation or any foreign exchange deal. Average rate is only statistical information to indicate central tendency of data for research and policy direction purposes. CBN uses spot rate for oil receipts and monetisation transactions.
“The NNPC’s liftings of crude oil are normally received by the CBN into NNPC account three months after the liftings. The rates used during the year’s liftings cannot be the same throughout the year, hence the cause of the observed difference by the Honourable Committee.
“CBN cannot confirm the exchange rate used by the NEITI Audit as CBN Average Exchange Rate, since CBN uses the spot rate for the receipts and not an average. Also, CBN cannot ascertain how NEITI derived these average rates.”
SAINT MUGAGA, ABUJA.
