FG Orders Forensic Audit Of $20bn Missing Oil Fund – Okonjo-Iweala
— May 9, 2014 | Comments Off
The federal government yesterday said it had directed the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF) and Price Waterhouse Coopers to undertake a forensic audit of the alleged missing $20 billion oil money.
The minister of finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, announced this at a panelist discussion on the topic “Africa Rising” at the ongoing 24th World Economic Forum on Africa (WEFA), in Abuja.
The forum with the theme “Forging inclusive growth, creating jobs” is attended by over 1,500 delegates from over 70 countries.
The suspended Central Bank Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had alleged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had failed to remit $20 billion to government coffers.
Okonjo-Iweala said the exercise which started last week would be carried out within a period of 16 weeks. According to her, the auditors are to assist in unraveling mysteries surrounding the unaccounted $20 billion.
“On the issue of holding government to account, Nigerians are unrelenting. We need that transparency and we welcome it. The suspended CBN Governor raised issues on an unaccounted amount of money from the federation account. We at the ministry of finance have for two years been reconciling these figures with the NNPC to know what they are supposed to remit to the federation account.
“Our feeling is that the only way is to have a forensic audit that would let Nigerians know the truth on the issue. That the government has approved and it is being done by the Price Waterhouse Coopers under the supervision of the Auditor-General for the Federation. The auditors said they need 12 to 16 weeks to do that, and all these would be clarified,” she said.
On poverty and inclusive growth, Okonjo-Iweala said the nature of economic growth in the continent had not been inclusive enough, adding that more needed to be done to change the quality of economic growth.
She said, “It is obvious that the quality of our growth is not good enough because we are rising with inequality and without creating jobs for our people. We need to get people to go into farming through ‘Nagroprenuer’ where 750,000 youths would be encouraged to go into agriculture.
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http://leadership.ng/business/370092/fg-orders-forensic-audit-20bn-missing-oil-fund-okonjo-iweala
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