This was contained in a statement made available to journalists on Friday.
The Corporation stated that coming from a former Minister of Petroleum under whose watch a similar allegation of fraud was made, Buhari’s statement smacks of political mischief as he should know better than to peddle beer palour gossip as facts.
SEE: VIDEO: Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Tells Senate She Doesn’t Know ‘Secret’ NNPC Crude Oil Account With JP Morgan
26th February, 2014
By Peregrino Brimah, ENDS.ng
In this unbelievable video from a Senate inquiry in July 2012, Nigeria’s finance minister and minister of the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (NOI) stumbled to questions about a foreign JP Morgan account the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation, NNPC used to collect revenue from oil. NOI responded clumsily that “she can imagine being involved in foreign sales of crude, they would have such an account, but she did not know the JP Morgan account.”
Nigeria’s government is embroiled in missing oil billions scandal to the tune of $20 billion. The NNPC stands accused of being an “ATM’ for the executives, and is also being investigated for continuing a kerosene subsidy scam through which N700,000,000, about $4.2 million is looted from the nations treasury every day.
The president of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is under pressure to sack his Finance minister, oil minister and managing director of NNPC. There is also pressure and protests for the presidents impeachment for gross incompetence and corruption, or for him to resign.
Nigeria, a world top oil producer has been bedeviled by chronic corruption and poverty is rampant in the nation of over 168 million.
The video, rediscovered by SaharaReporters is below:
“It is sad that General Buhari, one of the founding fathers of the NNPC who himself has tasted of the virulent but false allegations deliberately concocted to cast the Corporation and the public sector management of the nation’s oil and gas industry in bad light, would be the one to allege that NNPC runs two sets of account books ‘one for public consumption and another for insiders’.
“We consider General Buhari’s allegation in bad taste as it is nothing but a deliberate political mischief calculated to cast the Corporation in opprobrium all in a bid to shore up his political capital.
“We find it difficult to understand how a former Head of State who has also served as Minister of Petroleum Resources could believe that NNPC keeps two sets of account books to perpetrate fraud, knowing that NNPC is the most audited and scrutinized agency in the country.
“In the past one year alone, the Corporation has had its books scrutinized and audited by the Senate Committee on Finance and an external auditor, PriceWaterhouse Cooper (PWC). Is it possible for the accounting discrepancies insinuated by General Buhari to escape the attention of such internationally acclaimed auditors? Andin any case, why would an alleged fraudulent Corporation keep two sets of accounting books knowing that such could be used as evidence against it?
“We hereby state emphatically that NNPC neither keeps two sets of account books nor is aware of the existence of such as the Corporation is run in line with international best practice.
“If General Buhari believes that such false information that are usually the subject of beer parlour gossip was true, would he rather that the Nigerian public believe that the allegation of missing $2.8 billion oil money against the NNPC under his watch as Minister of Petroleum was true?”
The Corporation called on members of the public to discountenance the allegation as there is no iota of truth in it.