AGF, Finance Minister Not Cooperating With Investigations Over Missing 48 Millions Barrel Crude
Afimag.com –
The House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee probing the sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil exported to China between 2014 to date, has said that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, and Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, are not cooperating with investigations.
The House Committee on Oil who made the disclosure on April 19, 2023, also accused Abubakar Malami of paying $200 million as consultancy fees in whistleblower recoveries within statutory approvals.
In a resume hearing on the subject, the Committee Chairman, Mark Gbillah, alleged that Malami and the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, were frustrating the investigation by not responding to issues occasioned by the sales of crude oil even as letters of invitation have been forwarded to them.
“We have not been getting any form of cooperation from the Ministry of Finance and that of Attorney General’s office regarding this investigation, despite a series of correspondents sent to them on this matter we are investigating.
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“We have 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 the amount of money recovered were not provided,” said. Gbillah
The committee boss implored the two principal officers to appear before the committee or risk arrest.
According to Gbilla, “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,” he added.
