Missing $20bn: FG to complete audit of NNPC in four months – Okonjo-Iweala

At the World Economic Forum for Africa yesterday came a disclosure That the Federal Government and auditors investigating NNPC accounts will, in the next 16 weeks, make public their findings on the alleged missing $20 billion from the Federation Account.
Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told participants at the on-going World Economic Forum for Africa , WEFA that the forensic audit of the NNPC would be undertaken within 16 weeks under the supervision of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, AuGF.

Replying a forum participant who made allegations of corruption in the oil industry during the panel discussion on Inclusive Growth, the Minister stated that “On the issue of holding government to account, I do not think Nigerians are laying back. We need that transparency and we welcome it. The (suspended) CBN Governor raised issues on unaccounted for amounts from the federation account and we at the Ministry of Finance have, for two years, been reconciling these figures with the NNPC to know what they were 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 issue.

“There is a forensic audit that the government has approved and it is being done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers under the supervision of the Auditor-General for the government and they said they need 12 to 16 weeks to do that and all these would be clarified.”
Controversy over the handling of oil revenue by the organization started with allegations by suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that about $49 billion was missing.
The figure was later moderated to $10 billion and later moved up to $20 billion before Sanusi’s suspension from office.
On inclusive growth, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala admitted that the nation’s economy was growing impressively but not creating as many jobs as required. She said that deliberate policies had been put in place to achieve the desired results.

“We are growing but not creating jobs and we have been asking ourselves, how do we change the quality of this growth and our rebasing has shown us where the potentials are. We need to get people into farming through agroprenuers where 750,000 youths would be encouraged to go into agriculture”.
According to her, two issues came forward on Africa Rising which required short and long-term actions to address the social and economic legs in the efforts at achieving inclusive growth.
She said the current security challenges facing the nation required short-term actions to ensure the return of peace and stability to the society, while focusing on creating jobs and providing social safety nets under which all Nigerians would have a sense of belonging.
“We should empower our youths to make the necessary change”, she said, but added that “youths should not accept negativism. We must make a distinction between criticising and making our leaders act. We should at the same time not make our people believe that everything is negative”.