Senate Committee on Gas has uncovered fresh multiple withdrawals from the dividends accounts of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas ( NLNG) totaling $1.151,609 billion illegally by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) apart from the $1.05 billion by the Group Managing Director.
The chairman of Committee, Senator Bassey Akpan disclosed this at the commencement of probe into the illegal withdrawal of $1.05 billion.
According to him, in line with the mandate given it by the Senate two weeks ago to probe the $1.05b withdrawn by NNPC from the account in April this year without authorisation by relevant authorities, the panel ordered NNPC and CBN to submit documents on withdrawals made from the NLNG dividends account within the last two years.
The chairman revealed that while the Committee was scrutinizing the NLNG account documents presented by the Chief Operating Officer ( COO) Finance of the CBN, Babatunde Adeniran, the committee observed series of cash debiting from the account from November 2016 to June this year totaling $2.201bn
The breakdown of the withdrawals not supported by required approving documents as observed by the committee are $86.546,526 million withdrawn from the account on the 22nd of November 2016 allegedly being payment on Paris Club loans for the state governors, $1.05b withdrawn on the 17th of April 2018 as National Fuel Support Fund.
Others are $650 million withdrawn from the account on the 7th of June this year for offsetting of Joint Venture Cash Call by NNPC which ordinarily supposed to be budget item payment and $415, 063m withdrawn from the account also in June without clear explanation on purpose for which it was meant for.
Angered by the illegal withdrawals, the committee chairman and members ordered officials of CBN and NNPC who represented their bosses to forward to them latest by Tuesday next week, supporting cum approving documents for the withdrawals.
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