Over N5tn in government funds have been
stolen through fraud, embezzlement and theft since President Goodluck
Jonathan assumed office on May 6, 2010, a SUNDAY PUNCH investigation has found.
Our correspondents arrived at the stolen
sum after poring over the reports of the various committees set up by
the President to probe some sectors of the economy, particularly oil and
gas. SUNDAY PUNCH also relied on disclosures by some senior government officials.
Five trillion naira is the summation of
government funds said to have been stolen, according to the Mallam Nuhu
Ribadu-led Petroleum Task Force report; the Minister of Trade and
Investment’s report on stolen crude; the House of Representatives fuel
subsidy report and investigations into the ecological fund, SIM card
registration and frequency band spectrum sale.
The Ribadu report on the oil and gas
sector put daily crude oil theft at a high 250,000 barrels daily at a
cost of $6.3bn (N1.2trn) a year. This puts the total amount lost through
oil theft in the two years of Jonathan’s government at over $12.6bn
(N2trn).
Oil theft is common in the Nigerian oil
and gas sector. In June, a special naval team impounded a French ship,
MT Vannessa, at Brass Loading Terminal, Bayelsa State, for allegedly
stealing 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the country.
Our sister publication, SATURDAY PUNCH,
had reported that the suspects, in their confessional statements,
indicted some political office holders, many fuel marketers and some
officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Department
of Petroleum Resources.
In October, Minister of Trade and
Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, in a letter to the President, said 24
million barrels of oil worth $1.6bn (N252bn) was stolen between July and
September.
According to Aganga, his signature was forged on the Export Clearance Permit that was used to export the crude oil from Nigeria.
Confirming that oil theft was depleting
Nigeria’s resources, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
in May, said the government lost a fifth of its oil revenues to theft in
April.
Apart from income lost through oil
theft, the Ribadu report also said ministers of Petroleum Resources
between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary oil licences and
that government lost $183m (N29bn) in signature bonuses via these deals.
The Ribadu panel discovered that three
of the oil licences were awarded under the current petroleum minister,
Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who took up her position in 2010.
Alison-Madueke, however, denied knowledge of the discretionary awards.
Shortly before the Ribadu report, the
House of Representatives had raised the alarm that the N2.6trn the
Federal Government paid for oil subsidy in 2011 could not be properly
accounted for.
The House said, “Fuel subsidy payments
amounted to N261.1bn in 2006, N278.8bn in 2007 and N346.7bn in 2008,
but, even after the subsidy on diesel had been removed, the ‘subsidy’
payments jumped to N2.58trn in 2011 — more than 900 per cent of the sum
appropriated for the year (N245bn).”
A subsequent report by the Presidential
Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments,
led by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, revealed that in 2011, 197 subsidy
transactions worth N232bn were illegitimate.
These frauds are not limited to the oil industry, as similar probes have shown that almost all sectors are involved.
In July, the House of Representatives
Committee on Environment discovered a tree seedling fraud worth N2bn
awarded by the Ecological Fund office.
Chairman of the committee on
environment, Mrs. Uche Ekwunife, said this during an investigative
hearing on the mismanagement of ecological funds for the development of
tree nurseries and seedlings in the 36 states.
According to her, out of the N3bn
approved by the Presidency in 2010, N2bn was released to the contractors
and consultants without government getting value.
Minister of Environment Hadiza Mailafia, however, said the contract was awarded by her predecessor.
In the telecommunications sector, the
House instituted a probe into the sale of the frequency brand spectrum,
which was reportedly sold for less than its value.
The 450MHz frequency, which was valued
at over $50m, was allegedly sold for less than $6m (a difference of $44m
or N6.9bn) by the Nigeria Communications Commission.
In the same sector, the reps, earlier
this year, commenced investigations into the N6.1bn SIM card
registration project embarked upon by the NCC in 2011.
The investigation followed the delay in
completing the exercise and the request by NCC for additional N1bn for
the project in its 2012 budget.
The lawmakers insisted that the NCC had
no business embarking on the project since various service providers
were already registering their subscribers.
Deputy Chairman, House Committee on
Communications, Mr. Usman Bawa, had said, “The NCC has no business with
SIM card registration. Apart from that, the service providers have done
about 80 per cent of the registration because they started before the
NCC. To me, for the regulatory body to be involved in the registration
is a duplication of effort, a waste of resources and time.
“Even, the manner with which the bill
for the N6.1bn was passed during the Sixth Assembly showed that there
was more to it than meets the eyes. From our investigations, from which
our report was compiled, our interactions with the NCC contractors for
the SIM card registration and the service providers, a lot has been
exposed and this was part of the reason why we removed the N1bn that was
budgeted for the same SIM card registration in the last budget.”
It would be recalled that the then
Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili, had, in
August, 2010, agreed that the amount budgeted for SIM card registration
was exorbitant.
Reacting to the massive frauds that have
greeted Jonathan’s tenure, Transparency International, told one of our
correspondents that Nigeria would continue to slack in development as
long as it keeps paying lip service to the fight against corruption.
It said via electronic mail, “President
Jonathan should insist that those accused of corruption are properly
investigated and punished if found guilty, irrespective of their
positions and connections. The judiciary must be seen as impartial and
fair.
“To signal a break with the past, the
government should set up an independent investigatory panel to review
charges of corruption within government and the private sector.
President Jonathan should endorse the panel and commit to ensure it has
both the scope and the power to investigate and prosecute.
“This is not just a matter of justice;
fighting corruption can affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of
people. The current culture of corruption hurts the majority of
Nigerians while the inequality gap widens.”
Also speaking to SUNDAY PUNCH,
the Director, Centre for Applied Economics, Lagos Business School, Prof.
Pat Utomi, said the spate of corruption in the country was
unprecedented.
The political economist argued that
prosecution and jail terms for corrupt individuals would not be as
effective as building a societal institution that would prevent
corruption.
A former Vice Chancellor, Crescent
University, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, also warned that corruption would
spell doom for the country if the trend continued.
He said, “It is unfortunate that the
country will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals. There
is a need for the masses to hold a three-day protest against corruption
to force government to prosecute those indicted for corruption.”
Similarly, Executive Chairman, Coalition
Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo Adeniran, said, “For Jonathan to
fight corruption, he must start with his cabinet. The way Jonathan is
going about his campaign against corruption is not the best way to go
about it.”
A global audit and financial advisory
firm, KPMG, had on Thursday stated that Nigeria accounted for the
highest number of fraud cases in Africa in the first half of 2012.
The cost of fraud in the country during the period was put at $1.5bn (N225bn).
