The Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Abubakar Malami, has been accused by 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 to date, of paying $200 million as consultancy fees in whistleblower recoveries.
The allegation was made by Chairman of the
committee, Mark Gbillah, at the resumed public hearing on the case. Malami and
the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, were accused of not cooperating with
the committee, failing to answer to issues arising from the crude sales,
despite letters of invitation sent to them.
Gbillah who expressed dissatisfaction with
the conduct of the two public officers, appealed to them to appear before the
committee or risk being arrested.
Gbillah 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.
“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.
”But we find it unfashionable that the
minister of finance and Attorney General of Federation have not bothered to
respond to any of the correspondence from the committee and this in our opinion
shows a lack of regard not only to the institution of House but also that of
the National Assembly as a whole.
“We will make this further appeal to the
minister of finance and Attorney General of the Federation and all others who
have not responded or who have not honoured the committee’s invitations to do
so in the national interest.
”In the event that they fail to do so, we
will be constrained to invoke the instrument of the summons and all other
necessary powers the National Assembly can exercise in this regard. But we want
to make this a formal and final notice to those concerned, the minister of
finance and Attorney General of the Federation, to cause appearance before the
committee to give evidence with regards to the allegations that have been laid
before the committee.”
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