Shocking: Unregistered Companies Benefitted From Subsidy: FG sacks Akintola Williams, Adekanola coys

[MrVan]

*Marketers deny culpability

*Saraki, the whistle blower, in soup

By Jide Ajani,Emmanuel Aziken & Emma Ujah

Some of the companies that benefited from the allocation of petroleum products and were, therefore, entitled to draw from the subsidy funds were neither registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, nor the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA.

This slipshod in effectively certifying documentation has already compelled the Federal Ministry of Finance to sack two accounting firms mandated to carry out certification.

Meanwhile, it was gathered at the weekend that the presidency may await the report of the Senate Committee on Downstream, which is also carrying out a similar probe of the sector just like the House, before acting.

Yet, some marketers are already crying wolf that they may have been wrongly indicted by the House committee, at a time when Senator Bukola Saraki, the man who first blew the whistle on the seeming mismanagement of the subsidy funds is having some challenges with the authorities as he is expected to face the Special Fraud unit of the Nigeria Police Force, a move his close associates claim may not be unconnected with his whistle-blowing move on the floor of the Senate.

UNREGISTERED FIRMS

In a telephone chat with the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee which probed the management of subsidy funds, Hon. Lawan Faruk, after an earlier interview, Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that there were some firms that also benefited from the subsidy funds but which were not registered.

According to Lawan, "during our investigation, we discovered that some firms that also participated in the process were not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC.

"Some of the firms were not even registered by the PPPRA, yet they participated in the process and benefited from the subsidy", Faruk said.

Asked to mention some names, the lawmaker said he could not mention the names off hand but that the report makes reference to them.

FG FIRES AUDITORS

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance, signed by Paul C Nwabuikwu Senior Special Assistant to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, and dated April 19, 2012, the auditors who were supposed to certify claims were sacked.  They are Akintola Williams and Co and Adekanola and Co.

The statement, titled SUBSIDY PAYMENTS: FINANCE MINISTRY TERMINATES SERVICES OF ACCOUNTANTS AND AUDITORS, reads:

"Concerned about the management of the subsidy regime, the Federal Ministry of Finance has for the last two months been reviewing aspects of the implementation of the subsidy regime related to its functions. The review has produced a lot of useful details on what was wrong with the system and what needs to be done to ensure improvement going forward.

 

"The review process kicked off in February when the ministry and relevant government agencies held a meeting with bankers and marketers at the instance of President Goodluck Jonathan. This was followed by a subsequent session with the accounting and auditing firms to re-evaluate their work.

"Based on the review, the Ministry has taken the following steps:

"The services of the audit and accounting firms responsible for certifying the documents and claims of marketers before payment have been terminated.

"The Ministry has established a committee made up of credible and experienced persons from the private and public sector with strong technical component under the chairmanship of Mr. Aigboje Imoukuede to examine the claims of payment arrears for 2011 currently being made by marketers. This is to ensure that only genuine claims are honoured.

"The ministry is also finalising a new and more effective system to replace the current arrangement and, in this regard, a second committee has been set up to propose a good way forward.  Based on other outcomes of the review, the ministry will take further actions as necessary.  In a related development, the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has put on hold further depletion of the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

PRESIDENCY AWAITS SENATE PROBE REPORT

The nationwide clamour for the prosecution of those fingered in the report of the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on the utilization of fuel subsidy is not expected to get presidency attention any time soon it emerged at the weekend. The presidency it was learnt was expecting a concurrent report from the Senate into the sector before acting on the report.

The put-off by the presidency it was learnt is also giving room for a number of marketers and others indicted by the Farouk Lawan led committee to also put forward their case for exoneration as a number of them including a company owned by a former Minister of Transport, Capt.

Emmanuel Ihenacho, are claiming to have been wrongfully indicted. The house committee in its report submitted last week had alleged serial breaches of the process in the payment of subsidy and recommended that a number of the companies indicted should refund more than N1 trillion to the federal government.

The recommendation on refund was essentiallybased on the fact that a number of the companies indicted did not appear before the committee as requested. Following the report many prominent Nigerians including civil society groups, lawyers and opposition parties demanded for the prosecution of those indicted.

Government sources, however, revealed at the weekend that the presidency would follow the same process it adopted in handling the investigations into the affairs of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, in dealing with the matter of the payment of subsidy. In that case the federal government waited until the submission of the reports of the Senate and the house before taking action on the recommendations made by the two houses.

The Senate remarkably is also investigating the matter through its committee on Downstream Petroleum. The Senate committee has visited the nation's major refineries and is presently being expected to visit the Takwa Bay landing terminal before concluding its work and making its recommendations.

"The government is actually following developments in the National Assembly as regards the subsidy probe closely. We are concerned about the need to cleanse the oil sector but the government needs to get a clear and complete message from the lawmakers so that we don't act in isolation," a source disclosed yesterday.

A member of the National Assembly privy to the developments also disclosed that the decision of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke to initiate her own investigations shortly after the subsidy removal demonstrations of last January may have paid off for her.

The minister, the member disclosed, may have shielded herself from culpability with her invitation to erstwhile Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to lead a separate government investigation of the sector. The Ribadu committee is also yet to submit its report.

Ihenacho, a former Minister of Transport in the Goodluck Jonathan administration and chairman of Integrated Oil and Gas, had rejected the House panel report pertaining to his company which directed that his company should refund N13 billion. "We totally and completely repudiate the substance of the report, our firm is not involved in any fraud  whatsoever," Ihenacho said following the presentation of the report.

The assertion for concurrence was, however, flayed yesterday by Mr. Bamidele Aturu, a leading civil society advocate who asserted that the issue of concurrence was no longer needed where the National Assembly's power to expose corruption has been executed. "We are not asking for the president to act on the report, it is not for him.

It is for those who have been found guilty to be prosecuted and to go to jail and those exonerated should be set free," Aturu told Sunday Vanguard yesterday. He further said that there was no issue of concurrence where the issue of exposing corruption is involved  as required by the constitution.

SARAKI'S INVITATION BY SFU

In fact, there were fears over the weekend that the Police Force Special Fraud Unit, SFU, invitation of former Kwara State governor, Senator Bukola Saraki, may not be unconnected with the indicting report by the House of Representatives Committee which probed the management of the fuel subsidy funds.  Senator Saraki raised the alarm on the recklessness of the management of the subsidy funds on the floor of the Senate and which kick-started the probes into the management of the funds.

Saraki has been invited to come and explain the N8.5billion loan granted by the defunct Intercontinental Bank to some of the companies in which Saraki is a shareholder. The SFU is asking Saraki to come and clarify how the loans owed the bank by the companies were written off – the companies are Skyview Properties Limited, Limkers Nigeria limited and Joy Petroleum. A source said this was "a private transaction between a bank and its customers  and is not a matter for the SFU, as no fraud is involved".

Sunday Vanguard has learnt that the suspicion by confidants of the former governor turned senator is that he is being "persecuted for raising the alarm of the mismanagement of the subsidy funds".

Insisting that the Police has a right to do its job, the source however, maintained that since last Wednesday when the House Ad Hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy laid its report, "Saraki has been under intense pressure and condemnation from some forces and marketers and he has also spent a considerable time meeting influential people in government to explain that he meant well for the country with his motion."

Vanguard Nigeria