1st November, 2012
Though yet to be officially released, the report of the inquiry by the Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force is already setting tongues wagging. Expected to be submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday, 2 November, the leaked report exposed monumental corruption in the management of Nigeria’s oil sector over the last decade.
Set up in February this year, the Ribadu committee probed oil and gas transactions between 2002 to the present. The panel was charged with determining and verifying oil revenues (taxes and royalties, etc,) due and payable to the Federal Government, and to collect all debts due and owed; to obtain agreements and enforce payment terms by all oil industry operators.
After an eight-month probe, the task force unearthed large scale sleaze and abuse of processes in the sector. The 178-page report detailed how Nigeria lost out on tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues, over a 10-year period, in underhand dealings between multinational oil companies and government officials.
Specifically, the report found that Nigeria lost $29 billion (N4.553 trillion) on cut-price gas deals and hundreds of millions in missing bonuses and royalties. It also indicted the NNPC of selling itself cheap oil and gas, that oil traders bought crude oil “without formal contracts”, and that oil ministers handed out discretionary oil licences to cronies.
Between 2008 and 2011, the report said oil ministers handed out seven discretionary oil licences – three out it awarded during the tenure of the current minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who came to office in 2010. During the period under review, a total of $183m (N28.73bn) in signature bonuses paid by oil companies to the country was missing, the report added.
In yet more startling revelations, the panel found the NNPC illegally spent oil money in its care on extra-budgetary expenses, including the purchase of a N2.23 billion chopper for the president. The corporation also reportedly granted a N700.5 million loan to Sao Tome & Principe at the behest of the presidency, as well as made a curious payment of N2.421 billion to a certain Royal Swaziland Sugar Company, among other malfeasance.
The astounding revelations coming out of the Ribadu committee probe only reinforces probes conducted early this year by similar probe panels of the House of Representatives and the Senate. If there was any shred of doubt as to the findings of those parliamentary probes, the Ribadu panel has confirmed what is actually an open secret.
As the committee’s report is submitted to the Presidency, the government must do the proper thing by implementing its recommendations. There should be no cover-up of any sorts in dealing with the all-important report. Those indicted of having helped themselves to our collective wealth must be brought to justice.
There should be no sacred cows, as has been the case with the ongoing prosecution of oil subsidy thieves, where certain classes of government officials fingered in the fraud, but considered untouchables, have been left to walk free.
The Jonathan administration must match its posturing of ensuring ‘transparency, probity and accountability’ in the very critical oil sector, with action. All those indicted in this latest probe, no matter how highly placed, must face the music.
Despite their nation being one of the world’s largest oil producers, Nigerians have been suffering amidst plenty, with a few clique cornering what belongs to all the citizens. The Ribadu panel report is another opportunity for the administration to make things right.