Saraki lashes out at EFCC over corruption fight
- Senate President Bukola Saraki has accused the EFCC of harassing government officials instead of focusing on the corruption in the petroleum sector
- He expressed shock at the level of corruption in the oil sector and advised the EFCC on how to go about curbing it
- The NEITI report states that the NNPC did not remit $12.9 billion to the federation account between 2005 and 2013
Embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki finally had an opportunity to fire at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday as he accused the agency of focusing attention on harassment of government officials instead of investigating alleged corrupt practices at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Saraki said Nigeria was only paying lip-service to the fight against corruption.
The Senate president who is facing trial for under-declaration of his assets, spoke when a delegation of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) led by its executive secretary, Waziri Adio, presented the audit report of the organisation to him.
At one of the hearing recently, the prosecution witness, Michael Wetkas, gave more details on the property acquired by Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal during cross-examination today in Abuja.
According to The Cable, Saraki advised the EFCC to channel its energy into recovering looted funds in the oil sector.
The NEITI report states that the NNPC did not remit $12.9 billion, being the sum of dividends, interest and loan repayment from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), to the federation account between 2005 and 2013.
Apart from this, the report reveals that Nigeria lost $518 million to offshore processing arrangement and crude for product swap arrangement in 2013
Saraki said:
“This is just 2013, one year’s report. It is not cumulative. In one year’s audit report you are talking about figures of over $3.8 billion; at that time I am sure the rate was close to N150 per dollar.
“So you are talking about N650billion. Then you are talking about another N358billion which brings it close to about N1trillion.
“Then you are talking about assets that were undervalued and transferred to NPDC but still no payment was made.
“You are talking about NAPIMS paying cash calls for an asset that doesn’t belong anymore to NNPC and you truly wonder that this is going on right under our nose here in this country.
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“What is the ICPC doing? What is the EFCC doing? This is what is killing this country.
“Honestly, I just concluded that as a country I don’t think we are serious. We are just paying lip service to this issue of fighting corruption because this is the real terminology of economic sabotage.
“This is what I believe agencies that are truly fighting corruption should have taken up. Meanwhile you see them sometimes chasing a local government chairman for N10million or chasing even the state governments for less amounts.
“These are just astronomical figures and nobody is being asked where the authority came from. Even if you say it was a minister, do we have where managements of those organisations have been able to say this is not what should be done?
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“There are people who are responsible in management to advise on what should be done.
“And these people am sure are just walking the streets up and down without anybody asking them any question. It is incredible.
“Honestly, we must begin to do something about this because unless we do that we are just wasting our time. We are just chasing areas that maybe catch news headlines but they don’t have any effect.”
Source: Legit.ng
